Laser technology in automotive lighting

The last few years have seen something of a revolution in automotive lighting facilitated by a range of new photonics advances. The lighting industry as a whole is moving rapidly from the incandescent and gas discharge based technologies that dominated the 20th century to solid state technology in the form of Light Emitting Diodes (LED) which are a point source light, Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLED) which are an area source light and at the edge the increasing use of lasers with different functional applications. In this paper I will focus on this edge technology of lasers as they are still trying to find their right place in automotive lighting. To better analyze their potential, the working principle of a laser will be explained, laser types used in automotive lighting, their application methods, advantages and disadvantages of their usage will be declared, application examples from the current trials of some leading automotive industry research groups will be given and finalization will be with an overall view of the possible future laser applications in the field of automotive lighting.