Way down upon the Swanee River

Does anyone remember The Honeymooners routine where Norton was helping Ralph to prepare for a "name that tune" contest? Before each practice session Ed would warm up with "Way down upon the Swanee River" then launch into loads of difficult songs that Ralph would identify. Well, when the contest began the first tune Ralph was presented...yes,you guessed it and he had no idea!

I have been working with laser solvents for quite a while including some pretty expensive, highly purified spectroscopic grades. I have also tried some that are expensive to dispose of because they are rather toxic. This is based on rather wide range of published results for the xanthenes, the coumarins and the phenyl derivatives. Each researcher will use a particular solvent and then go on to study some other aspect of the laser design and it is hard to deconvolve the solvent effect. The solution is to test a lot of alternatives.

Well. during this time I have always depended on 91% isopropyl alcohol FROM WALMART as the workhorse clean up solvent for lab ware and table tops etc before moving to purer liquids for final cleaning and flushing or for hosting a dye in the laser. Well...right again! I thought to try this "junk" just to see how badly it would perform. I'm not kidding here, this stuff is wonderful. It is cheap. It's mid range polarity works with polar and non-polar dyes. The fluorescence output is, taking Rhodamine 590 as an example, 25% better than any combination of methanol, ethanol water, ethylene glycol and Ammonyx that I have tried. And, it's really cheap! There is no delivery charge if you go into the store and so my local Walmart thinks I'm a little touched. I'm buying A LOT.

:cat:
Brilliant !
Have you thought of trying Jack Daniels ....bit expensive but you never know *retardo you might even end up with a curved beam! >:)
Cheers:)

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Have you thought of trying Jack Daniels

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It just doesn't last.:o

the swami river??

:)

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the swami river??

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See what I mean?

Just to check: you're seriously saying 91% IPA is better than meth/eth?
Have you a spectrometer? How does IPA shift the emission relative to the same concentration in Methanol?

Yes, to both. The RG590 shift blue shift is approx 10 nm with isopropyl vs 50:50 MeOH: H2O. The coumarins (480,490,500,504) shift 15nm. This is in the spectrometer. The CL wavelength in the laser will be modified by the optics. Here, I only measured the energy.

Oh, something I neglected to add. The ammonyx is not very useful in the other alcohol systems, but does add a few percent in the energy output of the isopropyl system.

MeOH is presumably CH3OH? Me isn't a recognised chemical notation!

MeOH and EtOH are widely used in the states in the last few years.

STEVE

But,, yes you are correct I meant CH3OH, methanol.

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Originally Posted by mixedgas

MeOH and EtOH are widely used in the states in the last few years.

STEVE

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Ah, they're not terms I've ever seen used in the UK; I was aware of the use of the term methyl hydrate, so guessed that was what was being referred to.
:good:

buy everclear for the ethanol. It's 90+%.

Run it through activated carbon and then a filter to pick off the small particles. basic 5micron water filter works. If water is an issue you can dry it some with mgsulfate but you have to distill to break the aziotrope with a little added acetone (benzene is traditional but...)

Call Thermofisher and buy some. A LOT easier. You need a license to buy pharma ethanol.

I use "denatured" ethanol that is specifically denatured with methanol 5%. This does not interfere with its function, as anything that I use that is soluble in ethanol will be soluble in methanol and the net polarity of the mixture will be essentially that of ethanol.

I tried 99.9% isopropyl on the chance that the stuff from Wall Mart was a step in the right direction, but higher purity stuff would work even better. It didn't.

Fascinating data, Sire... http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...ons/icon14.png Will be especially keen to keep track of your 'decay' findings / performance over time with the IPA, and any other anomaly-findings you'd be willing to share.. Especially-keen to hear of any performance-data with Sulfarhody-640 and IPA.. :cool:

BTW, been meaning to relate / suggest this to you: I was on a gig / sort of 'retreat' for a few days last fall in N. AZ, and after - literally - spending the 45˚ night sleeping on a large rock, warmed only by a fire we'd made (forest-safe.. :) and make-shift 'sleeping bags' out of one of those car-window 'heat-shields' and a rather large piece of poly-sheeting we found (the idea was to see if we Could 'rough it' / make it thru with not much more than our wits.. :cool: we 'rewarded ourselves' with a nice hot breakfast in town, and whilst waiting for our cuppa Joe, my Son took to picking a rather over-ripe 'Prickly-pear fruit' from the terrace garden, to share with me as an appetizer (which are fantastic, btw, especially given the alternative prospect of roast-lizard for breakfast.. ;)

..Anyhoo, after I got done scolding him for 'not respecting thier property' blee, blah, blah, I was taken by the unbelievably-intense color and concentration of the 'juice', as it very-expertly stained the living daylights out of my shirt.. And I began to think thru gleaning a few dozen of them to purify / make enough, uh, 'Cacdye', thinking that the water in the plant-pulp would already supply the 'water' that you'd typically mix-in with Me / dye-powders.. Never got around to being able to Test my prickly-theory :rolleyes: but.. I am willing to bet 1/2 the farm that Prickly-pear fruit-juice would make one hella-beam, refined properly.. It's Intense! :cool:

..However, it looks as though you did Not add any water to the IPA? (would make-sense Not..), so.. Wondering if the 'Cacdye' would have to be mixed with Me, only, considering its' high water-content... Yeah, I - suppose - you could juice / reduce / concentrate / powder, etc the dye-component in the fruit, so as to be able to use it in other-mixes that would Not want H2O in there, but.. Eeek, that would be arduous.. I'm betting - and would be Thrilled to see You do this :) - that it Could be done, as-is, just µm-filtered / purified, and mixed up with some Me..

..Perhaps Sir Swami could select / send you some choice fruit to test? :p Staying tuned.. :cool:

j

Injured thumb, so typing slowly.

I did not add any H20 to the 91%, but as I said, removing the 9% made no difference. Going to the typical 50% H20 and alcohol (in this case isopropyl) does reduce the power. All my dyes work better with pure alcohol, but the beam quality suffers, presumably due to the lower specific heat/ thermal lens-ing during pumping. Just about anything soluble in H2O will be soluble in alcohol especially if there is some H2O in the mix. The big question is if the cactus dye is florescent. De-carbonated quinine water will lase. If it is fluorescent then it is worth a try. Assuming this is so, the next step step is getting some to a UV spectrometer to see where its absorption band is located. Most laser dyes seem to have a primary absorption no more than 100nm and usually between 50 and 100nm blue of their florescence peak. What ti the florescence peak/color. Lastly, once the pump is determined such as 532 or 488 etc then a cavity with essentially 100% mirrors on both ends to try to get it to lase.

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Originally Posted by dsli_jon

Fascinating data, Sire... http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...ons/icon14.png Will be especially keen to keep track of your 'decay' findings / performance over time with the IPA, and any other anomaly-findings you'd be willing to share.. Especially-keen to hear of any performance-data with Sulfarhody-640 and IPA.. :cool:

BTW, been meaning to relate / suggest this to you: I was on a gig / sort of 'retreat' for a few days last fall in N. AZ, and after - literally - spending the 45˚ night sleeping on a large rock, warmed only by a fire we'd made (forest-safe.. :) and make-shift 'sleeping bags' out of one of those car-window 'heat-shields' and a rather large piece of poly-sheeting we found (the idea was to see if we Could 'rough it' / make it thru with not much more than our wits.. :cool: we 'rewarded ourselves' with a nice hot breakfast in town, and whilst waiting for our cuppa Joe, my Son took to picking a rather over-ripe 'Prickly-pear fruit' from the terrace garden, to share with me as an appetizer (which are fantastic, btw, especially given the alternative prospect of roast-lizard for breakfast.. ;)

..Anyhoo, after I got done scolding him for 'not respecting thier property' blee, blah, blah, I was taken by the unbelievably-intense color and concentration of the 'juice', as it very-expertly stained the living daylights out of my shirt.. And I began to think thru gleaning a few dozen of them to purify / make enough, uh, 'Cacdye', thinking that the water in the plant-pulp would already supply the 'water' that you'd typically mix-in with Me / dye-powders.. Never got around to being able to Test my prickly-theory :rolleyes: but.. I am willing to bet 1/2 the farm that Prickly-pear fruit-juice would make one hella-beam, refined properly.. It's Intense! :cool:

..However, it looks as though you did Not add any water to the IPA? (would make-sense Not..), so.. Wondering if the 'Cacdye' would have to be mixed with Me, only, considering its' high water-content... Yeah, I - suppose - you could juice / reduce / concentrate / powder, etc the dye-component in the fruit, so as to be able to use it in other-mixes that would Not want H2O in there, but.. Eeek, that would be arduous.. I'm betting - and would be Thrilled to see You do this :) - that it Could be done, as-is, just µm-filtered / purified, and mixed up with some Me..

..Perhaps Sir Swami could select / send you some choice fruit to test? :p Staying tuned.. :cool:

j

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i have some fruiting cacti around here, but i wonder if cochineal wouldn't be better. for those of you not from the southwest, cochineal is a small scale insect that lives in prickly pear cacti and is used to create the red dye carmine. the navajo and mesoamericans used the dye to make red wool in their textiles. it's also used in food coloring. if you squeeze the bugs, the red that oozes out is so deep and so saturated it looks like blood.

Attachment 49532

Attachment 49533

https://youtu.be/pele5vptVgc

That is the dye used in Campari.

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Originally Posted by planters

That is the dye used in Campari.

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i'm not much of a drinker, but i'd give it a try... have you considered pumping it? ;)

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Originally Posted by swamidog

i have some fruiting cacti around here..

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..Well, Sir...

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Originally Posted by planters

..The big question is if the cactus dye is florescent...

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..I guess you've got yerself a bug-squeezing / fruit-juicing / see-if-532-tickles-it, homework project on yer hands, eh? :) ..But yeah, Sir Eric is right - best to get some of that bug/fruit blood onto a proper speccy, before fouling-up a nice dye circulator, only to find out it's not gonna play photon-ball.. But.. I'm gonna bet at 'tabletop-projector levels', no reaction from 532, but.. Perhaps with the right-amount of 'KTPersuasion', from Herr Karl over yonder?? ..Hmm, one wonders..

[popcorn]

Get some of each of these dyes and see if they even fluoresce. If they do not this is a non-starter. Even though RG590 absorption peak is around 520nm, the broad UV to blue of a florescent "black light" will make it fluoresces strongly. This would be a fast and cheap screening test. If it fluoresces, then the spectrometers will be worth using. Dyes can be very dense and potent by absorbing well, the rest of the spectrum that they do not absorb. They need to fluoresce ie store and release red shifted energy to create an inversion.