Federico Capasso

By Hamish Johnston

“Advances in quantum-mechanically designed materials have led to fundamentally new high-power semiconductor lasers that are suitable for a broad range of applications,” is how Federico Capasso and colleagues began a June 1999 article in Physics World about the quantum cascade laser.

Ten years later, Capasso — a co-inventor of the QCL — tells Marie Freebody at optics.org about the challenges of commercializing the technology.

You can read the full interview with the Harvard University physicist here .