DIY Copper Chloride Vapor Laser

Not Sure if this has been posted anywhere else, but here it is:

DIY Copper Vapor Laser

Link from hackaday.

The creators name is Jon ... is it GooeyGus? I seem to remember him wanting to build a CuCl laser, IIRC his name is Jon.

Enjoy

Adam

Thanks for sharing! I do like the nice color of copper lasers. Guess it's emitting two quite rare wavelengths: 510nm (blueish green) and 578nm (bright yellow), right?

So, wavelength collectors - start building one :bowdown:

Haven't heard from Gooey in a very long time. Looks like his laser is starting to come together!

The April 1990 issue of Scientific American had a great ameteur scientist article on how to build a home brew copper chloride laser on the cheap. Some scary high voltage stuff (the build in the article used a rotary spark gap) but it looked like quite a bit of fun.

I still have that issue around somewhere. I should give it a try. At the time I remember being put off by its being a pulsed laser but for several watts (average power) of output I'm now thinking it would be worth the effort.