Number 229 (Story #4), June 7, 1995 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein BLUE LIGHT FROM A SURFACE-EMITTING LASER . A collaboration of scientists from UC Santa Barbara, Notre Dame, Matsushita Electric Co. (Osaka, Japan), and the University of Tsukuba (Japan) have combined two burgeoning technologies---(1) the direct production of blue laser light in stacks of zinc-selenide layers and (2) the emission of laser light not horizontally but vertically from the surface of the laser medium---to develop the first blue-light vertical cavity surface emitting laser, at a temperature of 30 K. At warmer temperatures the laser output would shift from the blue (488 nm) to blue-green wavelengths. So far the laser medium has been optically pumped; that is, the atoms in the laser medium have been excited by light waves. However, at a meeting to be held at the University of Virginia later this month the researchers will announce the operation of a blue-green surface-emitting laser using a much more practical and efficient electrical pumping system. (P.D. Floyd et al., Applied Physics Letters, 29 May 1995.)