I've got a 12" Nd:YAG rod... suggestions?

Cyparagon said:

You could get a concave lens for just one dimension, and make the beam longer

Click to expand...

Couldn't that just be a cylinder?

hmm.. cylindrical lens.. pretty obvious, and pretty.. pretty!

we should vote: should xanatos get one or two 50w arrays, some cylindrical lenses, and make pictures? i vote for yes!
;-)

manuel

I'd start with a little less than 100W But count my vote as yes!

Thanks for the link to the monster array! Nice unit - but I think I'll hold off on that expense for the moment!

The stuff I saw on ebay for YAG rods was encouraging. I can probably build the whole setup for way less than I could have back when I first got the rod! That's one of the reasons I just stored it away - back then it would have been thousands of dollars to get the thing started... now it looks like I can do it for under $100.00!

hi!
looked at your photo of the rod...it looks a lot like the ones in the yag-laser at my work!
approx.30cm? 1rod+2 arc lamps combined with watercooling (demineralized water), reflector, and proper oc/hr mirrors could make a nice 500W CW.
Well, that's what 1 unit generates/ with 4 rods in series and 1 set of mirrors you got 2kw. but that's not handy at home...

well, just so you can have an idea for comparison. I have a 700 watt CW yag laser at work. The rod in it is 6.3 mm X 180 mm long. It is pumped by an arc lamp that runs like tens of amps (~40) at i wanna say hundreds of volts (but im not positive). I know that at the supposed peak power the supply uses like ~10 kW, that is also for cooling and such too, not just pumping.

If it was diode pumped it would need way way less power. Diode pumping is for sure the way to go. It was surely for a CW application, very long rods arent good for amplifiers or very short pulses because of massive ASE losses. Instead they usually use big diameter short rods.