Is There a Laser with Full Spectrum Wavelength Modulation?
In other words, can the wavelength be selected over the full visible spectrum by turning a knob or inputting a variable voltage? The quick answer is no, at least not anything affordable by less than a small country. 🙂 However, such lasers are in the research lab and limited tunability does exist commercially, though usually in the IR, rather than visible range of wavelengths. It is possible to use a multiline laser – closest to what you want would be an argon/krypton ion laser which outputs on over a half dozen different wavelengths. Then selectively modulate each of those to produce a fairly complete range of colors using a PCAOM. Of course, this isn’t variable control of wavelength but control of the amplitudes of a few wavelengths that can serve as primary colors in the same way only three colors – RGB – suffice to produce reasonable full color rendition in TV and computer monitors. Note that a variable wavelength laser (control of hue) would in itself not be useful for a full colo
