Future mobile phones can project movies

You may have a collection of excellent videos showcasing family life or an outing, shot with your expensive mobile phone. But how often do you wish you could project it on a screen like any movie? Now, Finnish researchers are developing a better laser light source that will enable mobile phones project movies and photographs sharply on any surface.

Small-size laser projectors, one to two centimetres in length can be integrated into many kinds of electronic appliances, such as digital or video cameras, gaming devices and mobile phones.

Current mobile phones are capable of showing high quality images and video, but their small size imposes limits on screen size and the viewing experience.

Integrated micro projectors could, in practice, project images the size of an A3 sheet of paper on a wall, according to researchers from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, EpiCrystals Oy and the Aalto University, working on the project.

The challenge is to develop a small, energy-efficient and luminous three-colour (RGB) light source, whose manufacturing costs can be kept low, for use in the projectors, according to a university statement.

“The project has successfully combined multi-technological know-how from VTT and its partners in the project, from manufacturing materials and the accurate focusing of laser chips all the way to production line design,” said principal scientist Timo Aalto from VTT.

“The project was launched last autumn, and we are now entering the stage where we can move from brainstorming and design to building prototypes,” said Aalto.

“We are developing an entirely new technology that is currently not in use anywhere else in the world. At the moment, there are stand-alone projectors on the market that can be connected to electronic appliances and early stage integrated projectors, but their quality and price are not competitive enough,” added Aalto.