Light-emitting diode of their major uses until their price drops low enough to make signaling and illumination uses more economically feasible. Barcode scanners are the most common example of machine vision applications, and many of those scanners use low-cost products red LEDs instead of laser-based LEDs. Optical computer mice are an example of LEDs in machine vision, as it is used to provide an even light source on the surface for the miniature camera within the mouse. LEDs constitute a nearly ideal light source for machine vision systems for several reasons: The light from LEDs can be modulated very quickly so they
Laser diode frequency doubling of near-IR VECSEL emitters to produce blue and green light. External-cavity diode lasers are tunable lasers which use mainly double heterostructures diodes of the AlGaAs type. The first external-cavity diode lasers used intracavity etalons and simple tuning Littrow gratings. Other designs include gratings in grazing-incidence configuration and multiple-prism grating configurations. Laser diodes have the same reliability and failure issues as light emitting diodes. In addition they are subject to "catastrophic optical damage" (COD) when operated at higher power. Many of the advances in reliability of diode lasers in the last 20 years remain proprietary to their developers. The