Green Dye Laser
A few months ago I ran across a clever small nitrogen laser build.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCnXftuJ9Zo
Back in the early seventies I was fascinated by nitrogen lasers and tried to build one. The vacuum sealing (and excess complexity) was my downfall. Years later I built a simpler unit that worked but that was that.
Before that I tried to build the flash-lamp pumped dye laser from CL Strong but once again lack of machining resources stopped my project.
I decided to finish what I had started fifty years ago. The build was clever and straightforward. After a short while and with about 50$ I had the nitrogen laser. It worked fine (even with air) so I got started on making a nitrogen laser pumped dye laser.
I had some old surplus quartz quvettes that had frosted sides. I used diamond abrasives to polish the two frosted sides. My attic full of crap yielded the mirrors and (amazingly) the quartz cylindrical lens.
In my experience the lens was the most useful part. I could get the dyes to lase using just the lens (super-radiance) but the mirrors not, except for one dye.
This photo shows the lens, the dye filled cuvette and the mirrors lasing. The dye is a fountain pen ink (probably a Fluorescein dye) lazing green. The pump is the nitrogen laser which is invisible UV light.
Cheers.
Green Dye Laser
A few months ago I ran across a clever small nitrogen laser build.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCnXftuJ9Zo
Back in the early seventies I was fascinated by nitrogen lasers and tried to build one. The vacuum sealing (and excess complexity) was my downfall. Years later I built a simpler unit that worked but that was that.
Before that I tried to build the flash-lamp pumped dye laser from CL Strong but once again lack of machining resources stopped my project.
I decided to finish what I had started fifty years ago. The build was clever and straightforward. After a short while and with about 50$ I had the nitrogen laser. It worked fine (even with air) so I got started on making a nitrogen laser pumped dye laser.
I had some old surplus quartz quvettes that had frosted sides. I used diamond abrasives to polish the two frosted sides. My attic full of crap yielded the mirrors and (amazingly) the quartz cylindrical lens.
In my experience the lens was the most useful part. I could get the dyes to lase using just the lens (super-radiance) but the mirrors not, except for one dye.
This photo shows the lens, the dye filled cuvette and the mirrors lasing. The dye is a fountain pen ink (probably a Fluorescein dye) lazing green. The pump is the nitrogen laser which is invisible UV light.
Cheers.