Beautiful Berlin Lasers

[gottaluvlasers]

Check these pictures out. I just got it through the ILDA email list.

http://www.picturereport.net/?p=2659

Technical Specs (according to the email):

"Technical background information:

Only our world bests lasersystems are being in use for this outstanding
project, developed and modified by our enthusiastic technicians.

Divergence from all beams are below 0,4mrad and maximum of 3mm beam-diameter
for the green line, and below 2mm for all other colours. No extra
collimation optics are used to keep the rainbow looking more real with
slightly overlapping colors after 6km distance.


colour wavelength power
----- ---------- -----

red 628nm 15,8W pure laser power
orange 628nm/532nm mixed 15,0W pure laser power
yellow 628nm/532nm mixed 19,5W pure laser power
green 532nm 10,5W pure laser power
cyan 457-514nm mixed 24,5W pure laser power
blue 457-488nm mixed 12,0W pure laser power
darkblue 445nm 8,5W pure laser power

All laser sources are pure single line resonators, no common diode-arrays or
OPS-arrays are used."

Absolutely beautiful!

-Marc

[Lasermad]

Yeah , stunning , would love more details on how far they are visable for

[dsli_jon]

Check these pictures out.

All laser sources are pure single line resonators, no common diode-arrays or
OPS-arrays are used.

WOW. Arctos, eat yer heart out.. I've gotta believe though, that these are, in-fact, OPSLs - just not 'arrays' - if-so, that is incredibly-encouraging for future 'large-frame' replacement applications (where you NEED all the lines you have inherent in an Ion...) - now THIS is a Laser system WORTH dropping $350-400K on! (vs an Arctos.) ... but I'm sure this-things' price tag would be a good deal more...

thanks, Marc..
j

[mccarrot]

Woow, thats really beautiful!

I now have new wallpaper

[dsli_jon]

WOAH! Wait...Hold the phone!! I had a closer look - That's a SP 2080 (?) Head!!!


SP_2080.jpg

Sooo, Ions are the 'hero', yet again!! ...Ions FOREVER!!!!

Seriously, seeing the power levels there, I was wondering how they could have a 'single-resonator' with OPSL / solid-state... but, new stuff is coming out all the time, especially over in Europa, there, and I would not be totally shocked to see such power shortly-forthcoming, if-not already-here... pleased-as-punch, but not 'shocked'...

Wondering what other Ion guns they have under the tarps, there? 171? Likely a KTP or DPSS for the 532, but the 628nm? ...Steve - isn't that your favorite line: 'sunkissed orange'..? And now, seeing that at least SOME of these are clearly Ions (well, UNLESS they simply used an ion HOUSING - could-be.. ??) wondering why they would not at least black-visquine the install-walls off, to protect from the snow piles accumulating - sure, not too-difficult to deal with running water in the cold (run hot to the heat exchangers, and never shut anything off!! ) but I'd think they'd wanna keep the heads somewhat insulated, besides those cheezy plastic tarps...

Anyhoo, COOL to see Ions (I think... ) still being champions of the light...

peace...
j

[Xer0]

Uh dont even heard about that. A friend lives there. i hope he has made some nice Pix!

[mixedgas]

628 @ 15 watts KTP pumped dye ? Or Jenlas ???????? KG:YAG has a line that can be doubled near there, but KG is not known for its heat conduction..

I'm guessing here...

Nothing ion does that much 628, there is a 630 nm KR ion line, but its only a few hundred mW out of a KR largeframe maxed out with special optics.. I didnt think OPSL are there yet, so the red is Jenlas, Some other OPO, Dye or a very rare lamp pumped solid state. Silm chance its OPSL. I'd be highly suprised if there is a single piece OPSL red, but I havent talked to anybody at Coherent in years.. I doubt its raman shifted KTP, but that is a very slim chance...

Those red numbers have me baffled..

meanwhile back at the ranch... "We'd like to know something about you for our files:"

Who in the neck in NYC did this for Her before ? Jeeze, I'm in the wrong line of work... Dont even need a Pangolin for this...

Someday Jon, ask me about Lexel ions on a icy 13 story rooftop at 20'F using cold fire mains, Its NOT as hard as you might think, just there is a mad scramble when you shut down.. One little problem in Ohio at 20'F. There is no moisture or dust in the in the air, only raman scattering off the oxygen. ...... Thank God we had a 450x150 foot windowless wall to scan on.... One other little issue about the index of refraction of the air between the brewsters, has this nice detuning effect, but , but we wont get into that here...

Steve

QUOTE FROM COLUMBIA MAGAZINE, Shes a Alumnus of Columbia

BEGIN QUOTE:

Spectral vision In January 2007, artist Yvette Mattern ’87SOA was driving through Concord, Massachusetts, when she saw something remarkable in the turbulent sky above Walden Pond: a brilliant, sky-sweeping, pot-o’-gold rainbow “coming out of those apocalyptic clouds like a true vision.”

All at once, Mattern got the big idea: to create a giant virtual rainbow. She read books on light refraction, consulted physicists. The logistics were daunting. Then, in September 2008, she saw a laser display in Berlin and was struck by its power. Now she envisioned a beautiful rainbow made of lasers. But there was one small question: How do you bend the light into an arc?

Mattern arrived at a witty if unscientific solution: If rainbows were to be projected simultaneously in multiple cities, then the light, which she imagined as being interconnected, would bend, in theory, with the curvature of the planet.

What she needed now was the proper occasion for which to try out the idea. Little did she know, even in September, just what history had in store.

When Barack Obama was elected president on November 4, Mattern, who is multiracial (German father, Afro-Caribbean mother), decided to stage a single rainbow installation, which she called The Global Rainbow. The date she wanted was Monday, January 19, 2009, which was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and also the day before Obama’s inauguration: a once-in-a-lifetime moment, the very culmination, it seemed, of all the optimistic things a rainbow stood for.

With barely any time to raise money, the Berlin-based Mattern decided to foot the $20,000 bill herself. A realtor friend in New York helped her find the ideal location from which to mount the two sets of laser boxes and beam the lights: the pyramid-shaped top of 14 Wall Street, the former penthouse apartment of J. P. Morgan. The proximity to the World Trade Center site and to the Brooklyn Bridge would frame the display in a certain grandeur.

The January 19 date was, for Mattern, nonnegotiable, and she labored feverishly to assemble her team of technicians and to secure the necessary permissions. But then, a week before the King holiday, she received an 11th-hour bombshell. To project the lights, she was told, she needed clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration — a process that would take up to 30 days. All her plans threatened to come undone.

As it happened, Mattern’s father had worked for decades as an inspector at the FAA. She called him and explained the situation, and he made some calls of his own. When he got back to her that day, he said that she would have clearance within hours. Five minutes later, a news flash appeared on Mattern’s TV: a commercial airliner had crash-landed in the Hudson River. Everyone survived.

The evening of January 19 was cold, with a steady snowfall. At 5 p.m., in the canyon of Wall Street, seven rays of light, glittering like diamonds as snowflakes passed through them, shot east and west across Lower Manhattan, from ground zero to the far end of the Brooklyn Bridge. Mattern hired a gypsy cab to drive her and a photographer around so she could observe her handiwork. As the night progressed and people became aware of the spectacle, crowds formed on the pier at Fulton Ferry Landing. Tour buses pulled over, cameras flashed. “It was a spontaneous gathering, a community feeling,” Mattern says. “People were in awe. It was exactly how I wanted it to be.”

— PH


ENDTH QUOTE

[dsli_jon]

628 @ 15 watts KTP pumped dye ?

Those red numbers have me baffled..

Of course, how could I forget??!!



...I have heard of 14W (supposedly) out of those puppies, and they state: '628/532' - makes perfect sense if they modded a KTP/Dye sys... and any 'pulses' from the Q would not matter, since this was just a beam... Hmm, could be..

Who in the neck in NYC did this for Her before ? Jeeze, I'm in the wrong line of work... Dont even need a Pangolin for this...

Dunno, wasn't us... bet it went 'unregistered', too...

Someday Jon, ask me about Lexel ions on a icy 13 story rooftop at 20'F using cold fire mains,...

Sure, would love to hear it - we can 'swap' stories about the time we shot a Sabre in 8˚ in Providence - all was well till the well-meaning-but-ignorant Fire Marshall shut the hydrant, (with no warning ) cause it was 'leaking on the street'... ~ 30 min before showtime... yeah, later, taco...

OK, so: here's my guess on the arsenal:

628 for Red, Orange, Yellow: KTP / Dye - possibly 2x large medical heads or a giant, 'industrial' head, to enable that much Red (would have to be like 48W+ of 532-pump, yes?)

532, 10W: ...well, that's easy...

Cyans, 24W: ...I-400 or 171, even...

Blues, 12W: ...looks to-be that SP 2080 (?) head..

Deep Blue/Violet, 8.5W: ...Again, I-400, maxed-out, w/ super-duper blueper mirs? Or? That's a LOT of 445...

Thoughts?
j

[gottaluvlasers]

ya know every time i see DSLjohn, steve, clandestiny and some of you other ion gods throw some of this knowledge out here i REALLY get upset at myself for not getting involved with ion systems!!

We are talking some serious laser powers here and some beautiful laser systems and i wish i had some experience with them. lasers like this, colors like this, beams like this are just not even remotely possible with todays solid state technology. Well, not without a bank account with >$1M in it anyway, and even then it probably isnt possible.

I propose this-

John, steve, clandestiny, and some of you other ion guys...put your heads together and start developing some solid state lasers with ion properties and powers!!! i don't care if it isnt possible. make it possible!

>80-100W like these pictures show, in a solid state system would have what, 8-10mm if not larger beams huh?? and divergences like flood lights rather than lasers?

i have been staring at the beam pictures relfecting off of the mirrors from this post forever. it is hypnotizing!

-Marc

[-bart-]

I'd be highly suprised if there is a single piece OPSL red, but I havent talked to anybody at Coherent in years.

639nm taipan OPSL

Nowhere close to 15,8 W 628nm, though.

[dsli_jon]

Hey Bud -

ya know every time i see DSLjohn, steve, clandestiny and some of you other ion gods throw some of this knowledge out here i REALLY get upset at myself for not getting involved with ion systems!!

WELL - ya wanna TRADE?? Say, 1-2W of RGB for one of these puppies? ... Still gotz one FS...

DSC09185.JPG

...I can even hook you up with a single-phase switcher-supply, so you can irritate your wife everytime she wants to cook (and the stove is unplugged... again...

...C'mon, Marc - you know you want-to... just L O O K at all those niiice liinezz....



.. and for the 'record' I am by no-means an 'ion-God' - I am, at-best, a 'journeyman'... THIS is an Ion God ...and THIS is an Ion God.. and Clan is an Ion God, if-for no other reason, than that he has one of everything, does billable-things with 110 W of Argon (!) and has a CVL longer than most of our cars... ...but I will be happy to lead you in the 'ways of the Ion', Grasshopper...

peace..
j

[-bart-]

I'm willing to bet that the source of 628nm is a SFM of 1535 and 1064.

[dsli_jon]

Hey Bart -

I'm willing to bet that the source of 628nm is a SFM of 1535 and 1064.

Hmm....interesting thought, but I would think it would be much, much easier to use a KTP-pumped dye, since they said they were achieving the 'yellows and oranges' by 'mixing' 628 (which a dye will do all day long, with the right 'dye mix') with 532, which, you'd have, inherently, in a KTP-pumped dye - and it should not be too hard to get the 'color-mix' just-right, by varying your deck-optics - it would seem an easer job to 'get' a yellow/orange that way (since you've essentially got both lines lasing in the same resonance-path, as-in an ion, in a KTP-pumped-dye...) rather than trying to 'converge' SFM-generated 628 with another-source of 532... you'd likely get beam-separation over that long a distance, with twin-sources... just my thinking on it...

cheers...
j

[dsli_jon]

i have been staring at the beam pictures relfecting off of the mirrors from this post forever. it is hypnotizing!

..well, get yerself a TOWEL, and stare at THIS!!! -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3YUEmdvtjk ..and then, THIS!!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiRhejN_dAk (just don't let the wifey catch you... )

...now, how about that Ion-trade?...

peace..
j

[-bart-]

you'd likely get beam-separation over that long a distance, with twin-sources... just my thinking on it...

When SFM is used to create 628, SHG of 1064 could be used in the same cavity to obtain 532.

When you look carefully at the pictures you can see that the orange/yellow beams are not exactly collinear. So we might both be wrong



If two beams overlap perfectly in the near-field then the divergence between the beams has to be less than the divergence of the beams themselves to remain overlapping in the far field. :-S

[dsli_jon]

hey Bart -

When SFM is used to create 628, SHG of 1064 could be used in the same cavity to obtain 532.

Sure, of course, but along the same resonance-path? (as-in a KTP/Dye..?) It would be great to see a layout drawing of how that would work... Interesting thinking, though...

When you look carefully at the pictures you can see that the orange/yellow beams are not exactly collinear. So we might both be wrong

Yeah, like even Ar / Kr lines coming out of the same resonator will have slightly-different divergence-chars... but, they're typically so-close, you'll not see anything but a perfectly-converged spot, as the end-result... I am sure there'd be a fair-amount of 'disparity' between the KTP and Dye-beams, though travelling-down the same resonance-path... but I'd think - as with an Ar/Kr ion - those issues would be less than converging two, independent beam-sources - even if from within the same 'cavity' - via dichroics, etc...

...Not saying your idea is 'wrong', I just don't know enough about what it would take to make 628 + 532 from a SFM/SHG-layout to think it thru - how you'd get all those lines from, essentially, the same 'resonance-path', from such a deck...

...Cool discussion...
peace...
j

[-bart-]

I agree, If they wanted to create a multi-watt orange line using SFM, 593 might be less complicated by sum-mixing 1064 and 1535 (both yag lines).

On the other hand, a watt of orange composed of red and green has less lumious flux then a watt of 593.
So instead of a 15W mixed beam of 628 and 532, they could have used a 10W 593 beam.

[mixedgas]

628 99% for sure came from a fiber laser sum frequency mixed with 1064. I've found two companies that make them, but not at 10 watts through...

One path into the laser show biz is to have enough clout at a university or corporation to borrow a lab laser....Since I had to keep the university lasers running 24/7/365 , I never did it...., preferring to use units the taxpayers did NOT pay for.

Since this is a world class art piece , I'm sure the artists laser friends had no problems borrowing state of the art.... Germany is more suited to funding that kind of thing then the US
And the Germans take Laser seriously, very seriously...

A second choice would be a Jenlas or two ... See:

http://www.laserfx.com/Backstage.Las...s/rgb-dpss.pdf


Steve

[gottaluvlasers]

John-

you're KILLIN me!!!

lol. if i had the room and the power for that, i probably would consider it!! I really think i need at least 1 ion system!

-Marc

[mixedgas]

.. and for the 'record' I am by no-means an 'ion-God' - I am, at-best, a 'journeyman'... THIS is an Ion God ...and THIS is an Ion God.. and Clan is an Ion God, if-for no other reason, than that he has one of everything, does billable-things with 110 W of Argon (!) and has a CVL longer than most of our cars... ...but I will be happy to lead you in the 'ways of the Ion', Grasshopper...

peace..
j[/QUOTE]

I am NOT a God. That is Yahweh-Jehova-Jesus,-God's job. (insert name of your faith's deity here if offended, Satan need not apply!)

I am a lifelong learner who likes to teach. I Study, Use, Modify and Repair lasers, these guys developed them:

These guys are the heros when it comes to Ion. In no particular order....

Bridges
Hobart
McMahan
Medford
Bell
Bloom
Peterson
LaBuda
Carlson
Miller
Wright
Mohler
Crane
Kolb
Ostler
Cannon
Barker
Cullins
Buzzard
and many more...

Steve

[mccarrot]

A second choice would be a Jenlas or two ... See:

http://www.laserfx.com/Backstage.Las...s/rgb-dpss.pdf


Steve

Damn Steve,

You do know where to find nice laser articles to read

Thanks for sharing

[-bart-]

It was this particular article that aroused my interest in solidstate lasers about 8 years ago.

[ElektroFreak]

I read that article about 5 years ago. That's a serious RGB setup.. I'd absolutely love to see it in action! I would imagine passing the final whitelight beam through fiber before output would give an ion-like beam rather than clusters of superimposed beams as produced by dichro combining alone.

[marco]

Hello,

for this job several AR/KR Mixed Gas Lasers and several JENLAS RGB (628nm, 532nm and 445nm) have been used.
The Jenlas Laser are modified to get max output at 628nm or 445nm ! For get Laserdiodes or OPSL - this Jenlas are running
in TEM00 mode and have a great beam quality.

greetings,
maqrco

[mccarrot]

Maybe Laserman532 can make a SUM-FREQUENCY GENERATION DIY kit

LOL