HeNe Rainbow

I'll let the pictures do the explaining...












...Let's just say I got lucky finding the orange one

Very nice... Tight as all, thanks for sharing. Wish u had a prism or a mirror set.

jander6442 said:

Very nice... Tight as all, thanks for sharing. Wish u had a prism or a mirror set.

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No prisms, but I do have tons of mirrors, diffraction gratings, and the such. Only problem is that I'm separated from these beauties until March (no room for them at college, sob).

That's beautiful. Thanks for sharing!

Awesome...
Nice colors.... Love the beams of gassers.
I only have 2 of the 4 Gas colors.


Jerry

You can contact us at any time on our Website: J.BAUER Electronics

Very nice! I have three of the four colors and not holding out too much hope of finding a 612nm. I do need to find a decent powered red since neither of mine are barely visible in a dark room.

This... This is laser porn

InfinitusEquitas said:

This... This is laser porn

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Yes, yes it is. Now if you'll excuse me I'll be in my bunk.

You get that orange HeNe from meredith instruments?
I'm pretty jealous... I'm still dying to get an orange myself but I can't drop $1k on one.

Very nice colors and tight beams at the aperture. Thanks for sharing it us.

Thanks for the comments everyone!

The lasers are indeed beautiful; it was only obligatory to take pictures and share them with you guys

Here's some more information about the HeNe lasers:
632nm: 15mW Melles Griot. Dot has small rings around it but is otherwise very clean. Bought it used on Ebay.
612nm: 5mW Meredith Instruments. I made Chad an offer for one of the orange HeNes on his website and he counter-offered with a used tube. I figured that this would be the only chance I would ever have to get an orange HeNe, so I made the purchase. I couldn't have been happier. The laser is actually Tem01, so it has a little dark spot in the middle of the dot, but it's virtually unnoticeable. However, the divergence is a little worse than its companions.
594nm: 4mW Meredith Instruments. Dot is in perfect shape. Bought it used on Ebay.
543nm: 2mW Melles Griot. There is a small ghost dot next to the main dot, but the main dot is still very clean. Bought it used on Ebay.

Now which of the four lasers is my favorite? Actually, all of them. There's something about the HeNe colors that make them softer and less harsh than DPSS or diode equivalents. And when all four are next to each other, it's a truly spectacular sight.

I must apologize for the poor quality of the photos. Not only did I not have my main camera, but I didn't even have a tripod! Hence the graininess of each photo. Although I do have to say that the colors are pretty well represented (minus 445nm and 405nm, which are pretty off). The picture best capturing the color is the close-up of the dots. The green is paler/more limey in person, the yellow is more amber, the orange is pretty much spot on, and the red is a tad more orange. It's hard to describe and imagine the actual color without seeing it!

Beautiful! thanks

Really love that ~611 nm Orange, they are incredibly rare to find at an affordable price. There is another orange HeNe line which is even more rare to find at ~604 nm (it's from the transition 3s2->2p7, whereas your one is down to 2p6). It fits right below that 594 nm yellow (2p8). Not sure but the "ghosts" around your spots could be because in these lasers red has the highest relative intensity followed by green, and yellow has the least followed by orange. But anyway lovely pics.

Wow. Thanks for that (for me) blast from the past!

Several decades ago I went to a laser expo/conference (CLEO?,?) in L.A., and on the vendor exhibit floor the Particle Measuring Systems booth had a bunch of the colored HeNes in a rack to showcase their manufacturing capabilities and product rollout. Keep in mind that HeNe colors other than red were a very new and different thing and pretty much unobtainium back then, and I was totally mesmerized at the sight. The kicker for me though was another HeNe they had on a table, with a pale golden beam, shining through a diffraction grating, and yes, there on the wall were the spots, all four colors, from the same laser! Unfortunately, they were not planning on actually making and selling THAT one of course [..-( however shortly afterward they marketed one-and two- line versions, and did so for many years. I still have a working 1mW yellow that I bought from them a few years after that show.

One notable thing about the yellow laser, I found that if I placed a microscope slide against the output end, it would provide enough feedback to make the red line oscillate, but it tended to "take over" and kill the yellow; try as i might I couldn't get it to do two lines at once (darn!).

Those HeNe colors are so amazing! The power is so low but the colors still are visible!

Oh wow! Thats beautiful man! BEAUTIFUL! I have no interest in gas lasers but they are damn cool to look at and have spectacular beam specs. Thanks for sharing