Changes in the industrial organization: Rise of spin-outs

As we have seen, laser diode R&D emerged primarily for optical communication applications. Due to technological developments in optical fibers, the wavelength resulting in the least transmission loss changed from short wavelengths of the 800-nm range to longer wavelength of 1300-nm and 1550-nm ranges. Therefore, more focus was given to R&D to develop laser diodes that would make high-speed, high-capacity optical communication possible at those longer wavelengths. To that end, scientists and engineers at telecommunications R&D facilities developed longer-wavelength laser diodes. Simultaneously, however, scientists and engineers began to develop shorter-wavelength laser diodes for optical information recording and processing, as more information could be processed with shorter-wavelength laser diodes.