At CES, Casio announced that it has created a mercury-free laser and LED hybrid light source, capable of high-brightness projection for use in the next-generation projectors the company has developed under its “clean & green” concept. Casio is releasing a line of GREEN SLIM projectors with the new light source, introducing the world’s first mercury-free high-brightness data projectors.

How?  Well, according to Casio, they have achieved this high brightness by combining a laser, a fluorescent element and an LED. Casio has achieved a high output of green light, which has been considered difficult with conventional semiconductor light sources, by very efficiently converting blue laser light into green light, using the fluorescent element. The high-brightness light of 2,000 or more lumens was then attained by projecting blue laser light, green light converted from blue laser light with the fluorescent element, and light emitted by a red LED through a DLP chip onto the screen.
Use of the laser and LED hybrid light source makes Casio’s GREEN SLIM projectors the world’s first data projectors bright enough (2,000-3,000 lumens) for projection in a well lit room without using a high-pressure mercury lamp.

At CES Casio actually showed nine different models of 2000-3000 ANSI lumen GREEN SLIM projectors; however, the only one that’s realistically going to ever be used in the home theater market would be the XJ-A240, a 2500 ANSI lumen 1280×800 projector – but even that is a stretch as it’s only 720p at best.  However, we bring you this news story to alert you to this new technological break-through as you are likely to see more LED-based laser projectors.

If you want to understand the technology in detail, you’re out of luck as Casio doesn’t have a whitepaper on the subject yet.  In the meantime, go read this release from Casio Japan:  http://www.casio.co.uk/News/Casio_Releases_Worlds_First_Mercury_Free_High-Brightness_Projectors/