Sony
Sony · Cell phone · Filed May 21, 2025 · USPTO published Nov 12, 2026 · This week's release
Sony Patents a Tiny Laser Whose Light Waves All Line Up the Same Way
Tiny lasers in phones and cars can send out light that wiggles in a different direction from one chip to the next. Sony's patent application fixes that with a mirror-like edge placed beside the glowing spot.
- Publication number
- US 2026/0361053 A1(US20260361053A1)
- Applicant
- Sony Group Corporation
- Filed · Published
- May 21, 2025 · Nov 12, 2026
- Inventors
- Tomohiro MAKINO, Tatsushi HAMAGUCHI
- Status when we published
- Waiting for an examiner
- Document
- 20 claims
- US classification
- 372/45.01
- Parent application
- National Stage Entry of PCT/JP2023/040712 (filed Nov 13, 2023)(PCTJP2023040712)
What Sony's one-direction laser actually does
Imagine a hundred people each shaking a jump rope. Some shake theirs up and down, some side to side, and a few switch halfway through. Light from many tiny lasers behaves a bit like that: the direction its waves wiggle, called polarization, can differ from one chip to the next and can even flip while the laser runs.
Plenty of devices work better when every beam wiggles the same way, and older fixes had costs. One etched a fine pattern right where the light exits, which can waste power and gets harder to build for blue light. Another squeezed the glowing layer, but the direction could still jump between two settings.
Sony's idea is to put a mirror-like edge beside the glowing spot, never on top of it. The edge bounces a little light sideways, and the beam leaving the top settles into the direction that runs parallel to the edge. In the filing's examples, 90% or more of the light lines up.
… a reflection portion having a reflection surface, wherein the reflection portion is located outside a current injection region of the active layer in plan view, and a normal line of the reflection surface is not parallel to an emission direction.
Translation: A tiny mirrored surface is placed just outside the laser's power zone to steer the light waves.
How a cut edge steers the laser's light
The device is a vertical cavity surface emitting laser, or VCSEL: a sandwich with a mirror on the bottom, a mirror on top, and a light-producing layer (the active layer) in between. Light bounces between the mirrors, builds up, and leaves the top as a beam.
The claim adds a reflection portion: a surface that sits outside the area where electric current flows into the active layer (the current injection region, where the light is actually made). Its angle is set so that a line standing straight out from the surface does not point along the beam. Think of a mirrored wall at the side of a stage.
That surface keeps some light bouncing sideways inside the chip, in a thin layer that guides light (a slab waveguide). The sideways light couples with the up-and-down light, and the beam settles into the wiggle direction parallel to the surface. The filing reports a polarization ratio of 90% or more, for example 95%.
The filing also describes these variations:
- The edge can be a cleaved surface: a diamond cutter scratches a line and the chip is snapped along it.
- It can also be the wall of an etched trench or notch.
- The edge sits within 1,000 micrometers of the emitter, and the filing prefers 20 or less.
- In arrays, nine emitters can share one edge to line up together, or different edges can point groups of emitters different ways.
… stably controlling a polarization direction while suppressing a decrease in efficiency.
Translation: It keeps all the light waves lined up together without wasting battery power.
Why phone and car sensors could care
Lasers this small sit inside distance sensors, and the filing names smartphones, smart watches, drones, robots and cars as places such sensors could go. It also lists projectors, head-mounted displays and laser printers. The filing notes that, depending on the application, controlling the light's direction is desirable.
For you, the payoff would be indirect: sensors that behave more consistently from unit to unit, without the power loss of older fixes. This is a patent application, so nothing says Sony will build it. The filing names no product and describes a component rather than a gadget.
Sony's 13th filing we've tracked in our cell phone coverage since May follows a clip-on fan patent and a charging alert system as Sony keeps applying around phone hardware and power.
Source: US 2026/0361053 A1 at the USPTO (PDF). Full patent text and figures are in the official publication.
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The drawings · 55 sheets
55 drawing sheets from US 2026/0361053 A1 · click any drawing to enlarge
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