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Thanks for the clarification. Now let's think. If the crystals are in a common holder then the temperature requirements will be determined by the LBO as opposed to the vanadate or YAG. If I was the manufacturer then I would set the alignment of the LBO so that it needed to operate at a convenient point above ambient. This way I could avoid the need to cool as well as heat. The whole purpose for adjusting the operating temperature of the NL crystal is to match the temperature to the set alignment angle. This is a a tightly coupled relationship.
If you know the cross section of the entry face of the gain crystal, you can get another diode with or without a FAC and use macroscopic optics to adjust the 808nm beam to match this dimension at a known distance. Do this on the bench, independently of the laser. Optimally, you would want the pump beam to focus down somewhat smaller than the crystal cross section and place this focus slightly past the entrance into the crystal. "><". I would start at about 100mW pump power and slew the crystal assembly from RT up to about 50 degrees C. If nothing, then I would keep doubling the pump power and re-slew the crystal until your up to about 2 W. Assuming you have some blue by this time, you're definitely in the rabbit hole and you can adjust the macroscopic optics to compensate for the thermal lensing and the refractive focus shift caused by the crystal material until you have maximized output.
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Oh, I forgot. The diodes have enough bandwidth that by the time you get to 2W there should be enough power at the absorbed wavelength to get some output from the laser. This is another area that once you have output then you can fine tune the diode temp to maximize output. This will not necessarily be the temperature of maximum absorbance. De-tuning the diode can allow the pump to optimally penetrate the crystal.
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My direct tv provider just decided to shut my service off, soooo now i have some money and a 2 watt diode on the way, who needs tv when you have lasers and Net Flix !
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The weather is going to get crappy and my diode finaly arrived so in the next few days i should have a "cleaner" work area to start digging into this thing. the diode has an FAC and the seller is still advising me to try the alignment with the FAC on. He also said he could find a diode for the crystalaser nightmare but has yet to come up with anything, once i can get and end mill bit i will make a grove in the crystalaser so i can use C-mounts for it, but that aside i am exited to get back to this blue laser
