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Thread: White light solid state laser?

  1. #1
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    Default White light solid state laser?

    Oooh. I'm getting chills. Does anyone know if this ever went anywhere?

    http://www.laserfocusworld.com/artic....html?id=65555

    The researchers believe the 500-nm emission spectrum band that they observed from LiF:F2+** is one of the largest for any active medium emitting in the near-IR. Phase-matching this output into standard nonlinear crystals, such as lithium iodide (LiIo3), will provide second-harmonic generation into the visible spectral range (400-650 nm). Collimation of this radiation will make it possible to produce a true white-light laser from one solid-state active medium.

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    Not sure about this one, but white-light lasers are out there since a while (supercontinuum, check this http://images.google.com/images?q=su...-8&sa=N&tab=wi )but they are pretty useless for show usage since there is no easy/cheap way to modulate the colors.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Phatslug View Post
    Not sure about this one, but white-light lasers are out there since a while (supercontinuum, check this http://images.google.com/images?q=su...-8&sa=N&tab=wi )but they are pretty useless for show usage since there is no easy/cheap way to modulate the colors.
    Why not use a galvo with a dichroic mirror fitted? That ought to work. Works with daylight :-)

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    Speed.

    And the fact that you can only get hue that way. You can't get all the weird mixtures of different lines, including white.

    I have to admit, these pictures make me want one!

    James.

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    And the fact a dichro is always a very narrow-band filter. So you would get always a very small fraction of the laser power after the dichro.

    These things are more ment to be a laser source for research and science I guess, also they are pulsed from what I can see.

    However - I sure would want one as well

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    How about using a PCAOM?

    Jem
    Quote: "There is a theory which states that if ever, for any reason, anyone discovers what exactly the Universe is for and why it is here it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another that states that this has already happened.”... Douglas Adams 1952 - 2001

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    Cool

    Quote Originally Posted by Jem View Post
    How about using a PCAOM?
    Ever see a 16.8 million channel PCAOM?

    Ok - maybe you wouldn't need that many, but the point is that with a supercontiuum laser you've got a broad spectrum of lines all lasing at the same time. Selecting any one line is only going to give you a small fraction of the total output power. You'd probably need at least several hundred channels to get a decent amount of power out of the laser, and I don't think they make anything larger than an 8 channel PCAOM.

    Still, it would be cool to send the beam through a prism and look at all the pretty colors on the wall. (Lumia wheel, anyone?)

    Adam

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    Yeah...

    I was sort of thinking along the lines of pulling out specific wavelengths from say 405nm up to 660nm, but I suppose if there aren't any particularly dominant lines available for selection that wouldnt work. As you rightly imply there would be a huge loss of power.

    Ah well, back to the drawing board

    Jem
    Quote: "There is a theory which states that if ever, for any reason, anyone discovers what exactly the Universe is for and why it is here it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another that states that this has already happened.”... Douglas Adams 1952 - 2001

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    Actually, it might be possible to use a PCAOM crystal with a completely different driver concept. What kind of color control can you exert on the laser itself?

    James.

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    Quote Originally Posted by James Lehman View Post
    Actually, it might be possible to use a PCAOM crystal with a completely different driver concept. What kind of color control can you exert on the laser itself?

    James.
    pcaoms work just fine with arc lamps :-) scientist types call them AOTFs, acousto optic tuneable filters. same crystal, a little different driver!

    if you widen the drive signal bandwidth, the transmitted power goes down, but a wider spectrum gets through, you can spread spectrum mod a pcaom carrier and get a bandpass filter.

    Steve

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