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- Mar 27, 2008
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I actually did this trick with a HeNe about a year ago. The head was a 3mW outputting 594nm HeNe, and I used a HeNe OC mirror that I got from eBay.
What really surprised me was that I seemed to be getting 4 HeNe wavelengths lasing simultaneously, which should be impossible. I figured they must have been switching between each other extremely quickly, because I have no other explanation.
The weakest line there was mode hopping like crazy, it was actually fun to just watch it make weird flower-like patterns. The other lines seemed stable though. I measured the total output power and ended up with about 2mW, down from 3mW when the laser operates normally.
What really surprised me was that I seemed to be getting 4 HeNe wavelengths lasing simultaneously, which should be impossible. I figured they must have been switching between each other extremely quickly, because I have no other explanation.
The weakest line there was mode hopping like crazy, it was actually fun to just watch it make weird flower-like patterns. The other lines seemed stable though. I measured the total output power and ended up with about 2mW, down from 3mW when the laser operates normally.
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