highest power CW Laser?

[gottaluvlasers]

anyone know what the highest power, CW, Visible spectrum laser ever made was?

how about for entertainment purposes? im assuming a yag probably right?

Pat- i may be wrong, but didnt you design, build and/or mess around with an 80+W yag??

-Marc

[Laserman532]

anyone know what the highest power, CW, Visible spectrum laser ever made was?

how about for entertainment purposes? im assuming a yag probably right?

Pat- i may be wrong, but didnt you design, build and/or mess around with an 80+W yag??

-Marc

well if it is CW commercially available, about all I have is a large frame SP or Coherent pushing about 30 watts max, spec'd at about 20 BBVis.

Now there is an architecture which will take two large frames and put them end to end, but it is difficult to do, possible...but difficult. yeilding 50 to 60 watts.

I dont know of any other CW (commercially available) which means NO PULSES.

steve probably knows of some exotic lab animal that i am not privy to.

[Laser Ben]

You can get an 18W 532nm Verdi or 10W 532nm Viper, those are diode pumped systems.

[gottaluvlasers]

i thought i remember hearing about some 80+W 532 out there somewhere?

Ooohh....crap, maybe that was Q-switched.

-Marc

[Laserman532]

i thought i remember hearing about some 80+W 532 out there somewhere?

Ooohh....crap, maybe that was Q-switched.

-Marc

the criteria was CW, visible spectrum

[mixedgas]

the criteria was CW, visible spectrum

\
Cw Cw, or medical long pulse? There are some long pulse medical argons that exceeded 30-40 watts at test, ie 2-3 seconds.

Argons have reached 500 watts in announced military sponsored testing, and probably exceeded that.

Lexel had a unit with two 295 tubes on the same rail, called a 150.
SP had a tricky combination of two 171s in series with a U fold. I know of one guy who did it.

Laser Ionics claimed a 60 watt production single tube argon right before they folded.

Some largeframes make 30-35 watts.

However, here is the hitch, there is a ITAR limit on exportable CW visible power, so nobody makes anything over 40 watts.

A PhD in Russia used to sell a 80-100 watt argon as a commercial product, and offered a medical dye laser pumped by it. Quite a few were sold. There are two tricks to it that I am not going to disclose. Beam is 1 cm or so diameter and there was a whitelight version. However a huge support system is required.

The current KTP product called ********** does 80 watts Qswitched for short periods of time. However its cavity is sealed, making it not hackable or easily repaired, and its psu needs a passcard and new fiber each time to run, Drs pay by the surgery. One goverment lab has hit 300 watts of green Qswitched.

Steve

[gottaluvlasers]

"ITAR limit on exportable CW visible power, so nobody makes anything over 40 watts."

Could you elaborate?

Is there a theoretical limit that a laser can not lase past? regardless of power factors.

if power requirements/cooling requirements were of no concern, is there a limit that a laser could just not lase past? Obviously it is depenedent on the lasing medium, but is there some theoretical limit that no matter how much power is used, no matter what is being lased, you just cant get past "X" Watts. (or MW most likely).

-Marc

[flecom]

Could you elaborate?

Is there a theoretical limit that a laser can not lase past? regardless of power factors.

if power requirements/cooling requirements were of no concern, is there a limit that a laser could just not lase past? Obviously it is depenedent on the lasing medium, but is there some theoretical limit that no matter how much power is used, no matter what is being lased, you just cant get past "X" Watts. (or MW most likely).

-Marc

i know its not visible or CW, but how about 5.0 × 10^14 watts?

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog...-the-fusi.html

[Laserman532]

short answer is depends on the medium (you specifically asked about visible lasers CW) and to my knowledge the highest powered CW visible laser is an argon ion laser.

my understanding is with argon lasers is the gas needs to re circulate in the bore so it needs to go to the outside of the bore to cool or chill out. You could make a 200 foot long plasma tube as long as you have sections where the gas is allowed to leave the bore and go into an area where the gas can chill a bit before making its trip back to the bore to get re excited.

There is a gain per unit of linear length per bore diameter per magnetic flux per gas pressure per voltage per current per magic factors to consider.

Why do you ask...just curious???

[300EVIL]

I've seen some pics of really HUGE copper Vapor lasers.... But again, that is pulsed.