"I have seen that too tried to email him no response about sourcing the thin disk vanadate material."
I bought mine from seller 1220elina from Hungary. Here was one of his previous auctions:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=320241043693
He also sells crystals for red, blue and green. He sent me a little paper with some explanation of how to build a thin disk laser. If anyone wants it let me know.
One thing builders need to be aware of is the wavelength matching of the nd:yag crystal. ie. your laser diode needs to be exactly 808nm. The absorption peak falls off dramatically past this.
A lot of people on ebay list diodes as 808nm, or high power pump for DPSS, but have they really checked it?
Don't jump in and buy a diode without making sure, or your money is wasted.
One thing I am trying to figure out about the thin disk lasers, is what coatings are required on the KTP. All of my KTP has coatings DBAR 1064/532. However I think that the required coatings should be Side 1 AR 808 HR 532, Side 2 AR 532 HR 808.
I have seen other journal articles about building single frequency nd:yvo4/KTP 532nm lasers that use the birefringence of the nd:yvo4 to force the cavity to oscillate in single mode. And for this the above coatings we needed. Does anyone know if they are needed for the thin disk lasers?