Very Old Ruby Rods
Here is a real nugget for the VLA that showed up on Ebay recently. It's a set of ruby laser rods and associated optics that I believe came from Trion Instruments of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Trion was formed in 1961 by Lloyd G. Cross and Don Gillespie specifically to make pulsed ruby lasers. It was the first company formed to make pulsed lasers although Raytheon was the first to sell a pulsed ruby laser. Their first laser was used by Peter Franken to discover harmonic generation of light. Their lasers were characterized by the use of liquid nitrogen vapors for cooling, and the use of TIR for the high reflector by grinding a roof prism into that end of the rod.
The smaller of this set of rods has such an end. Trion was sold to Lear Siegler in 1964 and the TIR rods were continued by them. Both of these rods have glass sleeves bonded to their ends, for making the water seal in the cavity. They were bought at a surplus place in California in the '80s, along with five ruby mirrors made by Perkin-Elmer.
By the mid-'60s, lots of companies were making pulsed ruby lasers commercially. The TIR end was a good idea, but must've been expensive to produce. I'm going with a date of 1963 on this set because I think the TIR end should be associated with Trion Instruments and not Lear Siegler. I've included a pic of a Lear siegler brochure that shows the rods.
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