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Thread: Mixing Colors with a beamsplitter?

  1. #1
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    Default Mixing Colors with a beamsplitter?

    I know it is possible to combine beam from two lasers of equal wavelength using a cube beamsplitter. But is it possible to mix different colors using the same method?
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  2. #2
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    The question is why would you want to, and have to worry about reflection coming back from the cube and damaging your lasers, and the secondary problem is it will screw up the polarization, you will end up with a randomly polarized beam. The simplest way to do it is to use a dichro filter if the wavelengths are different, it will already have AR properties from the coatings. A beamsplitter cube is really only efficient if you get one with AR coatings on them, and in your case you would need two different coatings on each side of incidence, or else the losses will be high, dichro efficiency of a decent ($40) dichro is in the 90%+ range, beamsplitter cube losses can be 25%.

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    Okay, I see what you mean. I was just wondering if it is even possible.
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  4. #4
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    I know it is possible to combine beam from two lasers of equal wavelength using a cube beamsplitter. But is it possible to mix different colors using the same method?

    why not use dichroic mirror,the RGB laser just used the mirror like you want.

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    All I wanted to know is if it could be done!
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  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Laser Ben View Post
    All I wanted to know is if it could be done!
    http://www.laser-man.co.uk/2006/inde...d=21&Itemid=28

    a small amount of info on my site mate
    Eat Sleep Lase Repeat

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    That didn't help at all!
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  8. #8
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    It would be like using cheese as chalk. They're both soft, crumbly solids but the differences are too great to allow effective use of the wrong thing.

    If you send green light into a beam splitter made for red light, most will get relected, not much will get passed, and it's so inefficient a lot will be wasted without going anywhere useful. If you had spare red-wavelength beamsplitters, and no dichros for red/green mix, and far too much green, you might do it in an emergency, but that's about it. If you pass the green through, you'll waste so much to take advantage of efficient reflection of red, that you'll not have nearly enough green. If you pass the red and reflect the green, you'll lose more red, and have far too much green. Other possibilities exist, but they're all worse, they won't even give you a balanced choice if the lasers weren't reasonably matched to start with.

    Use dichros.

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