CW Ruby Laser?
It seems that few people are content with a pulsed laser when they realize that most of the time, nothing is happening and they figure that much greater output power should be possible. Well, at least for ruby, it is extremely difficult and any claims to the contrary (from suppliers of laser parts) should be taken for what they’re worth – which isn’t much. 🙂 “Having spent some time with gas and 4 level (YAG) laser systems, I am contemplating CW pumping a ruby rod with a linear arc lamp and a Q-Switch. I realize that being a three level laser, it is significantly less efficient than YAG etc. The ruby I have is 6″ long and 5/8″ in diameter. Has anybody any experience with doing this and what sort of input power is needed/possible?” (From: Curt Graber (cgraber@fwi.com).) I’d hate to see that massive pretty ruby rod thermal dynamically explode but if you do put this together use a video camera so we can all get a glimpse of the death and funeral. I read somewhere that a lab did have moder
It seems that few people are content with a pulsed laser when they realize that most of the time, nothing is happening and they figure that much greater output power should be possible. Well, at least for ruby, it is extremely difficult and any claims to the contrary (from suppliers of laser parts) should be taken for what they’re worth – which isn’t much. 🙂 However, it now seems that at least low power (so far, 100 to 150 mW) CW ruby lasers are available from Klastech Laser Technologies. They use a 532 or 523 nm green DPSS laser to pump a TEC-cooled ruby rod with a separate Fox Smith Interferometer impedance-matched resonator. (The latter is used with all their DPSS lasers, but with a doubler crystal inside.) The following discussion predates the introduction of Klastech’s Creshendo 694.3 nm CW ruby laser: “Having spent some time with gas and 4 level (YAG) laser systems, I am contemplating CW pumping a ruby rod with a linear arc lamp and a Q-Switch. I realize that being a three level
