IR laser provides face recognition on mobiles

Biometric identification offers a safe, convenient alternative to managing increasingly complex password portfolios.

It uses a camera to capture unique characteristics of an individual — facial features, the pattern of the iris, or the network of veins in the palm — and compare them with images stored in the system. A match will unlock the device.

The Osram Bidos PLPVQ940A is designed as a light source for facial recognition, illuminating the face evenly and so enabling the system to capture high-quality images for reliable identification.

Because infrared light is used, the captured image is not subject to distortion due to ambient lighting.

A VCSEL (vertical cavity surface emitting laser) is a light source with a monolithic laser resonator that radiates light vertically to the surface of the semiconductor device, providing coherent light with directed emission.

VCSELs combine the high power density, homogeneous illumination and simple packaging of a conventional IRED (infrared emitting diode) with the narrow spectral width and speed of a laser.

Beam divergence is narrower, assembly into target devices easier and more cost efficient, and wavelength sensitivity to temperature changes much less than for an EEL (edge emitting laser) diode.

Coupling efficiency to optical fibres is high.