Hi Powered HeNe laser

[mixedgas]

Brad,

These big ones get used in Raman Spectroscopy, Holography, Doppler flow measurements, Tire testing, and X-ray film scanners, as well as some defense uses. When you absolutely still need to have the best beam quality, least divergence, wavelength stability, and/or narrow frequency, you reach for a HENE. They are not going away for a while.

Steve

[Bradfo69]

So what makes one yellow or orange? More He and less Ne or something like that?

[mixedgas]

IR, Orange, Green, and yellow are a change in the optics coating, bore diameter and length, and gas mix ratio. Glassware designed for good red power may not work well at other wavelengths.

Steve

[steve-o]

There's also the sentimental factor for us "older dudes" in that "back in the day" before laser diodes were invented and even the internet was invented (hard to imagine now huh .. ) the only show lasers available were the big ion rigs and the he-ne's. I used to sit and just watch the static beam from my little hene .. and then later, yeah, the speaker "galvo" thing .. Sounds silly by today's standards but back when that's all that there was available .. or able to afford, that is .. good times ..

[TechJunkie]

For the most part, that's how the holographic MASTERS are made.

The adhesive film with the rainbow "great seal of (insert state here)/don't drink and drive" on a driver's license or the shiny silver spot with a holographic bird or planet on a credit card are usually mass-produced with a stamping/embossing process. The diffractive interference fringe pattern on the embossing drum comes from the master.

Security has been the big-$$$ market for holograms for a long time.

FWIW, those "happy party" and "smiley face" laser pointer cap gratings are often made through a similar process.

They use holographic ink with the presses, correct? I used to have a drivers license kit, and it gave the color formulas for each state. You could use an inkjet printer to create the effect. I've never seen it first hand though because it didnt include the ink.

Good old New Hampshire flea markets. You could buy a license kit, a .38 revolver, and a Nazi arm band all on the same table. Cheap too. Get to know the guy and you get access to the real goodies in back of the van. The state motto is "Live Free or Die" and they are not kidding.

[absolom7691]

There's also the sentimental factor for us "older dudes" in that "back in the day" before laser diodes were invented and even the internet was invented (hard to imagine now huh .. ) the only show lasers available were the big ion rigs and the he-ne's. I used to sit and just watch the static beam from my little hene .. and then later, yeah, the speaker "galvo" thing .. Sounds silly by today's standards but back when that's all that there was available .. or able to afford, that is .. good times ..

Right there with you, man! I remember my first HeNe. It was harvested from a market barcode scanner that MWK was selling. Later, I bought a 14mW HeNe and I discovered diffraction gratings and OMG, I can have many laser beams! It was awesome. Never did static beams look so pretty!

[Eidetic]

They use holographic ink with the presses, correct? I used to have a drivers license kit, and it gave the color formulas for each state. You could use an inkjet printer to create the effect. I've never seen it first hand though because it didnt include the ink.

No. There is no "holographic ink". I suppose someone may be putting flakes of grating material into ink like they do to nail polish, but it's only marketing use of the word "holographic" to glom on to the power of the word.

Also, the masters made for the embossing process are usually made with deep blue sources like He-Cd, or a large Krypton ion laser running 413nm. It is possible to make surface relief holograms for that purpose using silver-halide film and a He-Ne, but only maybe one or two do it that way. The laser above would be great for that, for small images.

[WolfMax]

There's also the sentimental factor for us "older dudes" in that "back in the day" before laser diodes were invented and even the internet was invented (hard to imagine now huh .. ) the only show lasers available were the big ion rigs and the he-ne's. I used to sit and just watch the static beam from my little hene .. and then later, yeah, the speaker "galvo" thing .. Sounds silly by today's standards but back when that's all that there was available .. or able to afford, that is .. good times ..

Me too! I still have my first He-Ne (See Here)

[kecked]

I got my first hene in 1979 and it did 2mw. I loved that little laser. I even nearly stopped my heart getting shocked on the bare tube! Got the bright idea to try using a neon sign transformer direct with no ballasts to drive it. Didn't last very long.
Eventually i had a 35mw hene and 200 mw ilt with pcaom for full color. Still miss the 457nm line. Never used the 488 line. To this day I am still chasing the quality of that setup with diode.

[Vidal Wolf]

My first He-ne was a 5 mw xerox head from Melles Griot. Now Ive got two 107 35 mw He-Nes and a few greens and reds of lower power. I had a Jodon HN-50 that I sold to Editec last year. *that* was the biggest He-Ne Ive ever seen! It was over 6 feet in length. It was designed to lase at 3.3 microns and was used in the navy for research. It was so solidly built and weighed a ton. It took up a bit of space in my living room.... =/
Im glad Editec has it. He takes care of things like that. =)