Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology has announced the development of a surface-emitting laser that proposes to bring wider high-bandwidth proliferation in homes and offices with smaller, cheaper optical communications devices. Expectations are to produce an applicable version of the technology within four to five years, giving rise to devices that cost a thousandth of the semiconductor lasers currently used. This cost savings is in part to be realized by employing gallium-arsenide rather than indium-phosphorous substrates.