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Thread: A good day at work...

  1. #1
    mixedgas's Avatar
    mixedgas is offline Creaky Old Award Winning Bastard Technologist
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    Default A good day at work...

    After 8 months of work...

    10 nm spectral width, Gaussian spectrum, 100 femtosecond pulse, 4 watts average power, 1 Khz rep rate. Pics coming soon.


    Note the faster the pulse, the wider the spectrum HAS to be, its still a laser.

    Not that we will use it to blow holes in things, but this gives quite a meaning to precision "Glassworking" and "Metalworking".

    I'm happy.


    Steve

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    Pics or this didn't happen. Sounds interesting. Would like to see some of the machining involved.


    ivan

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    Quote Originally Posted by mixedgas View Post

    Note the faster the pulse, the wider the spectrum HAS to be, its still a laser.


    I'm curious about what effect is behind this. Sounds like Heisenberg.

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    Cryptic. Intriguing.

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    No mention of beam profile. Ti:S methinks.


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    The heck with tech specs -

    I just want to see it blow holes in stuff!!

    (Sorry - leftover habit from my old job.....)
    RR

    Metrologic HeNe 3.3mw Modulated laser, 2 Radio Shack motors, and a broken mirror.
    1979.
    Sweet.....

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    Quote Originally Posted by Stuka View Post
    The heck with tech specs -

    I just want to see it blow holes in stuff!!

    (Sorry - leftover habit from my old job.....)
    ^^^^^^ WHAT STUKA SAID !!! ^^^^^^^^^

    Hell, it's Friday. Time to blow shit up!
    This space for rent.

  8. #8
    mixedgas's Avatar
    mixedgas is offline Creaky Old Award Winning Bastard Technologist
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    Google "Spitfire and Laser" and "Topaz and Laser"... Those were already here.

    Something new arrived and I had to learn it. It was the final link in the chain. The Boss gets the honor of announcing it. So I cant.

    I'm too tired to post a link. I have pics. The experiment is not built up yet, so I can show laser pics.

    I just had to learn more about lasers in the past 48 hours then I have learned in the past 10 years.
    I had to watch him do the install and adjustments, and then I did the same thing.

    The service engineer had a PhD in Ultrafast Chemistry.... He was a GREAT teacher.

    I had to learn three ultrafast lasers in 48 hours.

    There are other ultrafast lasers on the table I had to learn as well. But I had time to teach myself.

    When it has nine or more mirrors in a laser cavity, you have to learn the alignment techniques and adjustment tricks from someone else. Its far quicker then blowing up expensive optics, learning it the hard/alone way. For the most part you cannot use external alignment lasers to align these, you have to use IR scopes and weakly visible glows from the crystals. A stack of business cards is the primary alignment tool. Most adjusting has to be done through a "Find-IR Scope".

    I use a special camera and a frame grabber to get it on a XGA "Widescreen". as I hate squinting through the IR scope. The "Scope" is a great product, but you are always refocusing it. The camera I use has a great AGC circuit, and a carefully picked close up lens.

    Just adding a microscope slide in the output beam lengthens the pulse at least 150 Femtoseconds from wavelength dispersion in the glass.

    I have another "Master Class" in the morning, cavity dumped dye laser alignment.

    Things like fixing climate controls, cooling systems, plumbing, getting parts, safety training, paperwork, and proving the old "widget" laser was unrepairable , took 8 months.
    The building was built in say 1916. This makes adding new hardware interesting.


    Yep, ist der Ti:S, and a alphabet soup of other crystals.

    Profile is great for what they are. These are generation 3 or 4 devices, and have astigmatism correction. The amp of course outputs a beam about half the size of a dime, but that is the only fat one.

    Everything I ever worked on up to now was CW or Nanosecond. I am a "babe in the woods" at ultrafast. I'm just a operator, the guys who developed these get all the credit.



    Heres a good basic explantion: http://www.tec.army.mil/research/pro...xt/lt2_1_1.htm


    I have to start writing one of these, here is another groups manual:

    http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...NzpVtQ&cad=rja

    This was a humbling experience. Thanks God, I needed this.

    "Its all done with Mirrors"

    Steve
    Last edited by mixedgas; 10-18-2012 at 18:21.

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    Quote Originally Posted by dnar View Post
    ..it's Friday. Time to blow shit up!
    Hellzya! ..at-least, '00Z-style'.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhAw_ws8gAs

    Nice werk, Steve.. ..too-bad you'll have to redact this all by-morning...

    cheers..
    j
    ....and armed only with his trusty 21 Zorgawatt KTiOPO4...

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    Steve,
    So many questions, but I too am out of steam. Are you going to compress these pulses? Ultra high harmonics? What can you say?

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