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Thread: Home-Grown OPSL

  1. #1
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    Default Home-Grown OPSL

    Hiya All PL-ers ..
    Just wondering if anybody has ever tried to build (from scratch) an OPSL laser? Or maybe reverse-engineer one (for personal use only of course ) to acquire those great exotic wavelengths .. Just curious ..
    Last edited by steve-o; 04-25-2014 at 04:49. Reason: spell-o

  2. #2
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    Oh steve-o, you're such a tease! I thought I was going to see a started project. Damn you!

    It would be cool to see someone bang one of those out. I love some of those sexy wavelengths.
    If you're the smartest person in the room, then you're in the wrong room.

  3. #3
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    Judging from the 100 or so layers of micron thick required to build the structure; don't think it will be happening soon!


    - There is no such word as "can't" -
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  4. #4
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    Disect a Coherent Sapphire for the chip but the 488-20 chips will not scale to a watt but maybe 50-100 mW is possible. This is not easy...by design.
    Phil Bergeron( AKA 142laser)

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    Daniel is right. The barrier is sourcing the assembled stack. These are pumped with easy to obtain IR diodes and then doubled to the desired wavelength. The funny thing is that about a year ago I was using a visual monochrometer to observe lasing wavelength shift with temperature. At a very high power the diode finally went LED. What surprised me was the EXTREMELY broadband emission of the now LED (from cyan to ruby red) and the relatively flat power across all these wavelengths. What would happen if the cavity wasn't originally optimized for 638nm? What if the junction was placed in a cavity with external mirrors and the facets were anti-reflection coated? Undoubtedly, the output, if any, would not be 1-2 W, but I would be surprised with all that emission if there weren't interesting lasing wavelengths that could be generated.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by absolom7691 View Post
    Oh steve-o, you're such a tease! I thought I was going to see a started project. Damn you!
    hehe .. mybad .. I guess the title could have been slightly misleading

    Sooo.. myguess is not easy-cheezy-lemon-squeezy .. Oh well .. maybe one day Heathkit will offer up a kit
    -edit-
    .. or one of the geniuses here will figure out how to grow your own xtals for one of these ..

    How about some nonlinear fiber ?

  7. #7
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    How about some nonlinear fiber ?
    Actually...... The problem here is you need a femtosecond source and although these are getting cheaper (as in less than $10,000) that's still real expensive for a few mW. But, then you get supercontinuum (more than an octave) from the UV to the IR; take your pick. I think the real gap, that needs filling, is the 550nm to 590nm yellow-orange and to do this is not too difficult. A good DPSS of standard design with vanadate and LBO or even KTP for SHG, but with very good coatings (>99.9%) for 1174/587nm will lase at the raman down shifted 1174 nm (then double it). The vanadate itself does the raman shifting. No other components are needed. Watts have been made this way. I think this is doable while the OPSL will have to wait for a knock-off source for the stack.

  8. #8
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    The DPSS method sounds interesting, or I guess we could wait for a 590nm 1W diode to emerge .. might be a long wait for that one though. Thanks for all the responses guys .. Interesting .. but way out of a hobbiest league I guess .. That's why they're only designed & built by the big companies I suppose ..

  9. #9
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    I have some mounted OPS chips here. Little ones from Sapphire -488's and big ones from 10-20W 532nm Taipan / Genesis. One nice thing about OPS is that the pump wavelength is non-critical. That 812nm diode you can't temperature tune to 808? It'll work fine. One not-so-nice thing about OPS is the broad emission spectrum which requires the use of a birefringent filter (BRF) to narrow the IR spectrum. Do a little research and PM me with a plan and I'll donate a chip or 2 to an interesting project.

  10. #10
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    Rather than PM you at this point, I have an interesting proposal. Can you describe the larger OPSL a little more? Why extract it form the original host? Is the crystal free standing ie it needs a heat sink designed and fitted and is there one integral reflector or are both cavity optics needed?

    I have a number of relatively high power 7-30 W 808nm, fiber coupled (200nm) pumps and if the operational wavelength is broad enough I can also obtain a CVD diamond raman crystal for down conversion. The self raman shifted vanadate I describe above is the alternative to a dedicated raman crystal (diamond is the most promising). Self raman is convenient, but more vulnerable to thermal lensing than even standard DPSS operation. I do not know what the transparency range of the OPSL is, but if OPSL's that operate in the 550 to 590nm range are unavailable then this might be a method to generate light within this band.

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