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ArcticMyst Security by Avery

TEA Cu vapor? 609.07nm? HeNeAr?

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Well, since I am bored, and currently begging for something to do, I am starting this thread.

This will double as a thread for me to bump with my research updates, new projects, etc. It will also be a place for anyone to ask questions on any topic gas related. No question is dumb or silly :) If it requires length to explain, I may even make a video to explain it quicker.

Soooo.. My current projects include:

TEA Cu vapor laser.
Information collecting on HeNeAr/609.7nm laser emission
Writing a paper on the above topic

Repairing my 488nm PSU so I can walk the tunable's mirrors...oops

Some details about the above topics:

TEA Cu vapor laser!

What is this?! Witchcraft?! Well, you could say that. I did a write-up on the details of this project on my facebook, I will add it to my website sometime tonight if I get around to it.

First and foremost, do NOT try this at home. Doing so improperly could result in the injury to eyes, respiratory functions, and your skin. Again, do NOT try this experiment.

Now some background.

The copper vapor laser is a fairly old incarnation of the metal-vapor lasers. In this case, in it's pure form you will fine a discharge tube with some amount of copper inside. This copper is vaporized, and lased by pulses of very high power. This pure copper has a vapor temp of around 1500C.

To make up for this high temp, developments have been made to lower it. The most famous, and common, is by using copper bromide, CuBr for short. These have vapor temps of around 500C. However, in this design you need a second pulse of electricity, further complicating things. This is necessary to disassociate the halide (bromide in this case) from the copper. Your first pulse does this. Once this is done, and you have pure copper in vapor form. A second pulse is used to send this vapor through atomic transition. Sending the electrons to their high laser state, and falling to metastable, before falling back to ground (stable). The fall from excited to metastable, results in the release of photons. Your stable laser lines include 510nm, and 578nm (rounded).

This operation is self terminating however, so in order to have what looks like continuous output, you need to rapidly pulse the laser. This results in "quasi continuous wave" functionality. In English, this is when a laser is pulsed so frequently (50-100+ reps a second) that the operation appears to be continuous wave.

In the following experiment, I will be using the above fundamentals, with a different laser design.

The N2, or TEA laser, will be the backbone of this design.

This is a laser that uses pulsed electrical discharge to send the nitrogen in the air, through transition, and results in high but short (0.5-40ns) pulses. The design, in essence, is similar to a copper vapor. It has a pulsed, self terminating output.

The goal is simple. I am to take a solid metallic copper acetylacetonate with a vapor temperature of 40C, and then send the vapors through the spark gap of the laser. Resulting in a "Cu TEA laser".

The problems I will face may be difficult to overcome. They include heating the compound to vapor temp, acidic vapors, and sealing the unit in a "safe" way preventing the contamination of the surrounding environment.

I will also need to accomplish the pulses power as well. As this is not pure copper, so I will need to remove the copper from it's acetyacetonate. This will be a hurdle in and of itself.

This experiment will be equal parts fun, to dangerous. With a large heap of learning curve, and hands-on experience. I hope to take the knowledge from the following experimentation, and use them to advance on this design to a more "permanent", and less dangerous one. The goal is to not have glass supplies, and tubing and open laser parts everywhere.

What a mouthful!!!

The next, and shorter topic to explain, is the HeNeAr/609.07nm laser.

As some of you know, I have an orange tube doing 609.07nm. I rejoice now knowing that a second has been found! This is excellent! We now have further proof that this is related to REO. I am currently speaking to an owner of a third LTOR-0150 to see if it is also doing this. Will update if anything comes of it.

To explain this, requires a brief look back into REO's history. first of all, they never built argon lasers. So for them to be totally oblivious to the effects of their decisions, is very likely. Considering that at the time, argon lasers were still new. Even now, with forums containing a wealth of information, there are plenty that know little about them.

REO has a history of making Ne II indicator lamps using what's known as a "Penning mixture". This is a mixture that contains a gas you want to ionize, as well as a second gas in trace amounts to lower the temperature of the intended gas' ionization temp. In this case, they used 0.5% argon mixed in with the neon.

Had they known that this would result in orange light, I'm sure it wouldn't matter to them. Neon has an orange transmission anyway, so the additional argon would make no discernible difference.

The hypothesis now begins. We believe (Dr. Sam and I) that REO had begun using this neon with their HeNes not thinking anything of it. Why have two separate supplies of neon, when you could just keep one? It's just a trace amount of argon, no harm, right?

Wrong. Within a Penning mixture, you also have a chance of something called "Penning ionization" to occur. This is the name of a phenomena that occurs when you add gas B to gas A to lower the ionization temp of gas A, and you actually ionize both A and B. Oh no! Now that argon that we added, is actually lasing as well! You have accidentally created a HeNeAr laser :)

Now since some orange tubes have multiline optics allowing anything from as far away as 594 to resonate in a 612 tube, you are now covering the 609.07nm line from the argon. This is the only time you will see this line of course.

It is likely possible to get this line to lase in other REO tubes by using orange mirrors on both sides of the tube, though I will need to confirm this on my own.

So that pretty much wraps up the two main topics in my life :)

The rest is self explanatory :p

Any questions?! Either on the above information, or anything that's been twirling in your noggin lately :)
 
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Re: Research updates

Makes sense with the 609nm lines. as for the copper laser, good luck bloom!
 
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Re: Research updates

Thank you :) There a few references to TEA Cu lasers on the FAQ. There have also been developments using acetylacetonate for lasing. I am simply combining the two :)
 
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I saw a homemade copper vapor laser once, the guy literally made a blast furnace in a tube. But it worked, i guess...

I await more updates on the other members LTOR-0150! You would think that this 4th line phenomenon would be one in a million-but it looks like it isn't? Time will tell, I suppose :)
It's a shame, I saw a 612 HeNe on ebay for fairly cheap a while back-like 150$-but at the time, i thought nothing of it. I dunno who it was made by, but still :(
 
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That 4th line phenomenon is only limited by the number of units REO sold of this type of tube :beer:
 
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True. Did any other companies use argon in their HeNe's though?
 
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Not intentionally, but no process is perfect, and no gas is pure.

I'm going to be testing my tube thoroughly here, and getting the discharge analyzed when I visit the Arkansas labs in January. Dr. Johnson has agreed to measure my tube.
 
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Very interesting. Did you try looking at the discharge through a diffraction grating while the 609nm is present for argon lines? Unless I've understood something incorrectly you should be able to see the blue and green lines for argon in the discharge spectrum too?
 
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Reading about your CuTEA laser has given me a few ideas.

  1. You could add phosphorous into the mix and get a TEA CuP laser.
  2. Throw some Iodine into the mix and it would become an I Cu P. (get the hint?)
  3. A bit of cerium would give you an ICe TEA CuP.
 

Roam

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I saw a homemade copper vapor laser once, the guy literally made a blast furnace in a tube. But it worked, i guess...

That might have been a CVL system not the CuBrVL (i.e. w/o bromide as a halide). That's why it required such an enormous operating temperature. With copper bromide you still have a very high temperature but still much less than Cu alone.


It's a shame, I saw a 612 HeNe on ebay for fairly cheap a while back-like 150$-but at the time, i thought nothing of it. I dunno who it was made by, but still :(

That was a LHOR-0150 made by Laser Chorus.


Btw apparently for copper lasers adding hydrogen to the noble buffer gas (Ne in this case) doubles the output power according to "Effect of hydrogen on CuBr laser power and efficiency" article from Optics Communications.

I think commercial units contain the hydrogen. But I doubt copper laser is still being sold, they are replaced by YAGs generating on second harmonic frequency.
 
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Do the LHOR-0150s not exhibit this? They were made -for- Laser Chorus, but were indeed made by REO.
I've got an LHOR-0150, I haven't looked at but I doubt it's got the 609 line.

EDIT: Never have I been so happy to be wrong, but I just checked my LHOR-0150, with a diffraction grating, and it DOES appear to be exhibiting the 609 line. (A 'lighter orange' line.) Note that my LHOR-0150 is labeled as manufactured by REO.

609-orange-maybe.jpg


As I indicate in the picture, the image doesn't show it well but the secondary dots are a paler orange than the primary 612. It is not quite as 'yellow' as the 604nm line of my REO tunable. Qumefox currently has (our) spectrometer, so I can't be sure, but this sure looks like it'd be 609.

Compared it also to my Melles Griot 612 through the same grating just to be sure, and there is no trace of a second line whatsoever on that one. (Just solid 612 dots.)
 
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i noticed that also with that tube. at the time i thought it was just some sort of "defect" in my cheapo diffraction grating and never gave it any more thought. live and learn.
 
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Yep my LHOR-0150 does this, you aren't mistaken :beer: so now we have 3 out of 4 tubes confirmed to be producing the 609nm line
 
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Yes, Ne is primarily used with the buffer gas, but I want to avoid gas cylinders in my dorm.

Aryntha, you could simply shine the 604 on the same horizontal plain as the 612, and ten look through a grating and see if the spots line up or not on the vertical order.

The heads apparently do as well, as Hwang mentioned.

I checked the serial number of Hwang's, and nowhere close. Not only that, but his tube was exactly 48 months older than mine. I doubt January is the month of bad QC'ing, so this must've been a permanent change to switch to their Penning NeAr.

EDIT: I had just woken up when I posted this.

Yes, Ne is frequently used as the buffer gas. I have not read of the additional H though. I don't know how cheap Ne is, but I hope it isn't too much to get a small cylinder, as that is all I want. I do not need cylinders of gas raising a suspicion in my dorm... The H will have to wait. At least Ne is nonreactive. H on the other hand.... I'm sure you've heard of the Hindenburg.
 
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