Copper vapor laser

http://cgi.ebay.com/nice-copper-vap...ryZ53141QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I have no idea what you need to power one of these, but apparently they're really high powered and are a neat green and yellow multiline color.

So it's a tube... but does it have a flash-coil thing around it to excite it, or is it done with other means?

dunno...

http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/laserccb.htm - this seems to suggest they just need pulsed high voltage... It seems more complicated than that, I haven't really read much on it yet.

That thing has been on ebay forever. I really dont know what the hell it is. I mean if it is a Cu vapor tube, it must have one hell of a heater in it. The copper in the vapor lasers needs to be heated to a very high temperature in order to achieve the vapor state. Also, you need a weird power supply for these. It's almost like a four stroke engine, where you only get one explosion per two revolutions of the crank. In this case, you need to give it two pulses of power for one pulse of light. The first pulse separates something in the metal (its been a while since I read about these, cant remember the exact process lol), and the second pulse allows those separated pieces to lase. So, I cant really see how this can be a copper vapor tube unless the whole thing is designed to go into some sort of heater/oven. The auction doesn't really have much information either.

Sounds to me like that first pulse vaporizes some copper.

[added] if it's a closed tube, the copper must be cycling somewhere/somehow.
I wonder if the supply reverses polarity on the second pulse?

maybe the lasing pulse deposits the copper onto the cathode; then in the next vaporizing cycle, the 'cathode' is made positive and the copper is driven off of it, into a vapor (must be copper repellant on the other electrode [sub][/sub]

pure speculation, I don't even know how gas lasers work :-X

GooeyGus said:

That thing has been on ebay forever. I really dont know what the hell it is. I mean if it is a Cu vapor tube, it must have one hell of a heater in it. The copper in the vapor lasers needs to be heated to a very high temperature in order to achieve the vapor state. Also, you need a weird power supply for these. It's almost like a four stroke engine, where you only get one explosion per two revolutions of the crank. In this case, you need to give it two pulses of power for one pulse of light. The first pulse separates something in the metal (its been a while since I read about these, cant remember the exact process lol), and the second pulse allows those separated pieces to lase. So, I cant really see how this can be a copper vapor tube unless the whole thing is designed to go into some sort of heater/oven. The auction doesn't really have much information either.

Click to expand...

Y'all know I sometimes buy stuff just because it looks cool. I've been watching this for awhile. The price used to be significantly higher. It is slowly coming down. One of the main reasons for this is the power source needed. It takes an RF power source. (Good luck at finding one that matches this and then affording it) He originally had the power source for it as well. However, like many naive eBayers, he figured he could make more by listing the components separately. Someone bought the power source alone. Since then this has been re-listed several times.

In addition, you should notice in one of the pictures the "water" hook-up. You will also need a water pump and probably a chiller. I'm not sure if it really needs water or coolant. In any event, this will be a long-term project for anyone purchasing it. Maybe GooeyGus could set it up on a shelf over his monitor

If it gets down to about $50, I might by it just because it looks "cool." I could set it up next to my stainless steel, tank HeNe. Thinking about that, it would probably make a good looking display.

Peace,
dave

That is a copper bromide laser tube for an opthalmic / urology laser.

It needs a supply of neon at a few torr, 220V for the pre heater, a hydrogen thyratron a .2 to .89 uf 30kv cap and a beefy ps to run it! you could run it with a tesla cil primary driver if desperate, then you'll need only the neon gas and a vacuum source.