1.1mJ 532nm Q-Switched DPSS Laser

I wrote a treatment for the use of lasers in the episode. They wanted to use my 35W YAG and a few others I have. Turns out there just wasn't enough to justify the expense. They really wanted to pop a lot of popcorn with a laser just like in the movie Real Genius which was they myth they were doing. They ended up going to UC San Francisco and popping one kernel of corn with a 10W YAG in one of the physics labs there for all of about 2 minutes of screen time.

FrothyChimp said:

The actual measurements are: 1.52mJ with a pulse width of 80ns at 10kHz, so it's really a 19kW pulse.

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So that would make it 15.2 watts average - i wonder if any of the demonstrations would look different if you used a continous output laser instead of this pulsed one. For most things it would matter, but perhaps it does matter with the razors.

FrothyChimp said:

I wrote a treatment for the use of lasers in the episode. They wanted to use my 35W YAG and a few others I have. Turns out there just wasn't enough to justify the expense. They really wanted to pop a lot of popcorn with a laser just like in the movie Real Genius which was they myth they were doing. They ended up going to UC San Francisco and popping one kernel of corn with a 10W YAG in one of the physics labs there for all of about 2 minutes of screen time.

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Thats the episode I was thinking, but wasn't quite sure. A fun experience I bet,
regardless of what they aired.

Perhaps it was not the expense alone, but rather the fact that Grant and Tori were
handling that myth

I was dealing directly with Beyond Productions, their production company in Australia. I think Grant would have been geeked to run a big laser himself. I was going to haul them out but I gave them a huge list of safety requirements to operate the lasers at M7 where the build team works out of. They would have had to do entry control, protective eyewear, beam containment, etc. My only responsibility would have been to train them in the use of the systems and insure a safe operating environment. It would have been quite expensive to pop a few kernels with my systems. It would have been fun to hang out with them again. Everyone is very nice. A few people and I had dinner with Grant when I was there for a week. He paid for everything in a sneaky way. We were going to pick up dinner but at some point he got his card to the staff. He's just a really nice guy. I think he even forgave me for spitting wine on him and his girlfriend at the time. I kind of coughed when I had wine in my mouth. I wasn't fast enough with the napkin.

So why is that beam so wide? Is that just the way the customer needed it? Or is that that nature of this type? It uses Nd:YVO4 right? Is it circular?

Really impressive setup there. Now just to get that laser on your sharks head.

Meatball said:

So why is that beam so wide? Is that just the way the customer needed it? Or is that that nature of this type? It uses Nd:YVO4 right? Is it circular?

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It's Nd:YAG/NLO, cylindrical medium, side pumped. The beam diameter is just the nature of the design. You can get narrower beams but don't forget to write the check for twice the amount.

This unit is to be used for university education so it's really a demonstration device.

You have girls in your lab? I'd neg repped you if you haven't married one
JK, +rep for nice vids and lasers

Where in the world do you come up with those name...? I mean hill dog. You must have one over on her for that to be allowed and published.

On the other hand you could call me anything you want just for a chance to walk in your lab.

FrothyChimp said:

I wrote a treatment for the use of lasers in the episode. They wanted to use my 35W YAG and a few others I have. Turns out there just wasn't enough to justify the expense. They really wanted to pop a lot of popcorn with a laser just like in the movie Real Genius which was they myth they were doing. They ended up going to UC San Francisco and popping one kernel of corn with a 10W YAG in one of the physics labs there for all of about 2 minutes of screen time.

Click to expand...

FrothyChimp,
What you described here really interested me. I had not previously watch the 80s film "Real Genius" with actor Val Kilmer and seen the part of the film where the laser shone down and popped popcorn. After reading this thread I decided to track this down a bit and subsequently watched the film and then watched the Mythbusters episode to see how it was done. Afterwards I thought to myself that it would probably be fairly straight forward to pop a kernel of popcorn with strong enough lasers and so I did. You can see how I did it in this thread:

http://laserpointerforums.com/f48/video-laser-popcorn-yes-can-done-home-d-56865.html#post803670

Thanks alot for sharing the details about this here!

-Scott

nice video... I do enjoy playing with qswitched stuff, although its usually... larger?

additionally with all due respect the part where you put the PCB in front of it was kind of stupid, you can see it was reflecting quite a bit of light... even with really good goggles I would not want a qswitched beam anywhere near me