Crystal converting 808 nm into 404 nm (IR to blue)

As some of you may remember, I enquired at Raicol Crystals about LBO (Lithium triborate) crystals. These double 808 nm laser light into 404 nm, a nice blue.

For those not familiar, a green laser (DPSSFD) works like this: 808nm LD --> Nd:YAG crystal --> 1064 nm --> KTP crystal --> 532 nm green laser light.

What these crystals will allow is the conversion of the 808 nm directly into 404 nm light. Meaning it turns a green laser into a blue. This allows the flexibility of converting ANY greenie into a bluey, high power and all.

Dimensions are 4mm x 4mm and 1 mm deep (note the 1 mm needs to be orientated along the laser light)
The damage threshold is 25j / cm[sup]2[/sup] in 10 ns pulses at 1064 nm. Meaning 25 watts per second per cm[sup]2[/sup], in a 10 nanosecond (10[sup]-9[/sup] seconds) pulse. From my rough calculations that works out to many thousands of watts. However if anyone can work out properly what this equates to in mW continuous as opposed to pulsed, please do.

OK, the cost.
Bad bit: for 2 units it's USD $280 each.
Good bit: for 100 units it's USD $95 each.
It says for larger quantities the price drops more.
Quote attached.

Who's (still, after the price) interested? GB?

Re: Crystal converting 808 nm into 404 nm (IR to b

Wow! That's kinda expensive , but I suppose, compared to a normal blue, it's pretty cheap.
You could make a blue for like less than $200 if you bought 100 crystal .

Re: Crystal converting 808 nm into 404 nm (IR to b

you cant convert 808 directly to 404 very well with perfect cavity optics. it's why everyone goes 808-> yag for 1064 primary and 946 trace line. the 1064 is filtered and the 946 is used with a LBO to convert to 473 blue. 404nm is violet. it's essentially the same as the blue ray diodes. Those are at least 10-20mw. Even if you were a GOD at making your own lasers I don't see you ever achieving 10mw with a homemade violet. Throw in that you can get 405 diodes for les than $100 and it's a no brianer. cavity optics are VERY complicated.

Re: Crystal converting 808 nm into 404 nm (IR to b

Aseras, agreed ! 808nm is not green....that is how green starts out...it goes through one set of crystals to turn the 808nm into 1064nm, then from there into another rystal to trun the 1064nm into 532nm, which is green. you CAN start out with 808nm and possibly make a blu-ray - but at that price, unless you have lotsa idle money sitting around, why do it ? If it is only in the interest of science, and to see if you CAN do it, then by all means go ahead - but as Aseras said - it is not too efficient, and very painstaking work !

G !

Re: Crystal converting 808 nm into 404 nm (IR to b

I think he meant 473nm, not 404 nm... It's VERY hard to make 404nm from 808nm... otherwise, why was the nichia diode such a huge thing? :

--DDL

Re: Crystal converting 808 nm into 404 nm (IR to b

according to the attached quote, it is 808nm (IR) to 404nm (Violet) and not blue. I will be more interested in crystal that can convert IR to 473nm (blue) rather than violet, although the price for 100 pieces or more is tempting...

Re: Crystal converting 808 nm into 404 nm (IR to b

any green dpss laser can be made into a blue laser and vice versa. the diffrence is in the cavity optics. It's the design of the crystal reflectivity so that the "resonance" matches the wavelength of the output you want. you get some abbertant lines, so if you have enough power, you can use one of the trace lines. so with a 808 pumping a yag or nd:yv04 crystal, you get the majority in 1064 ouput say 80%, but there are other lines, look here http://www.rp-photonics.com/neodymium_doped_gain_media.html

that are much lower outputs. you filter off the primary emission of 1064 and use another line.

Another problem is that the ktp or LBO or BIBO or KNbO3 crystals can all frequency double, BUT that are opaque or cludy to certain wavelengths. so some work well for 1064 -> 532, but using them to go from 946->473 is much worse since the crystal absorbs or scatters much of the energy since it's not transparent.

An example with 1.5W of 808 -> you can get 1.2W of 1064.
You can feed that to a ktp and get 200-300mw of 532.

An example with 1.5W of 808 -> you can get 300mw of 946.
You can feed that to a KTP and get 5mw of 473.
You can feed that to a LiBO and get 15-30mw of 473.
You can feed that to a KNBO3 and get 15-45mw of 473.

Re: Crystal converting 808 nm into 404 nm (IR to b

right. Interesting discussions, but does anyone actually want any? I assume not from the sounds of it but a direct response would be nice.

Re: Crystal converting 808 nm into 404 nm (IR to b

No thank you Offer is nice, though !

Re: Crystal converting 808 nm into 404 nm (IR to b

well if you insist on going with this, one more point is that LBO crystals are hygroscopic. they have to be shipped under nitrogen and the placed in sealed optics cavities or they can absorb water and you have to bake it off. If it's not sealed, after a few absorb bake off cycles your crystal will start getting worse and worse.