DPSS Rainbow at CLEO/PhotonXpo

Hey guys,

I just went to a laser exhibit in the Baltimore Convention Center and saw tons of cool stuff including:

-Fiber-Coupled Continuous Spectrum White Laser

-Optical Tweezers (a device that uses laserlight to trap particles in the micron/submicron level... I also took the short-course about this)

-Fiber-Coupled 593.5nm laser capable of 3 watts plus a couple of other multiwatt fiber-coupled fixed wavelength lasers, all pretty rare wavelengths.

-Ti:Saphire 5W? wavelength tunable laser capable of 280nm-2400nm without any "wavelength gaps" while tuning.

I would have taken pictures of all of this stuff and more, but there was a no-picture-policy with all of the companies. I did manage to convince one person to let me take a picture of their huge DPSS array. The power levels of these ranged from 200mW-1.5W, the average price was $2000-$3000, and the rarer wavelengths even ran up to $15000, IIRC. The "laser pyramids" were so close that the different colors affected each other (you can't see the true beauty of the 561nm), but it's still neat to see the rainbow.

-Jakob

Two bigger pics for better quality...





THIS WAS SO MUCH BETTER LOOKING IN PERSON!!! THE CAMERA SLAUGHTERS THE TRUE LASER COLOR AND INTENSITY!

That is hazardous to have a 375 sitting out there like that even with the beam diffused.

The Ti:Sapphire system is a OPO laser, they are a interesting way of doing fast pulse tuning.

Oh come on, ben. It's about the wavelength of a black light and much less intense.

PhotonXpo

I was there also. The 488nm and 505nm colors were exceptional. Actually, my eyes hurt after I spent 5 minutes talking to the people at that company. I think that it was from the combined eye stress of looking over the top of all of those different color beams. Bill

Haha yeah. Thanks for telling me about that, Bill. I had the best time I've had this whole year at the exhibit and short course. I learned so much! And BTW, I think the brightest display in there was something else. Do you remember when you walk back past ThorLabs and immediately look to the right? I think it was a fiber laser and it was hosted in a huge blue housing. Well anyways it was giving off a vibrant green-yellow probably around 540nm-565nm. The only thing diffusing the light was a little bubbly glass ball attached to the apature and when I looked at it I had a blind spot for like 3 minutes! I was surprised they weren't told to turndown the power!

-Jakob

505nm is such a pretty colour. I'd really like to see that laser in person.

+1 (or whatever..?) :topic:

Haha yes it was quite an experience. And +1 to me? If so, thanks!

Laser_Ben said:

That is hazardous to have a 375 sitting out there like that even with the beam diffused.

The Ti:Sapphire system is a OPO laser, they are a interesting way of doing fast pulse tuning.

Click to expand...

By what I know, glass filters UV (only certain wavelengths), and the laser was probably set at very low.

Also, it seems that the 515nm laser wasn't working, how does it look like?

Yeah, I don't know... for some reason they had it turned off along with the 405nm. Maybe it was broken. Also, I noticed that the 473nm and 532nm units were a lot dimmer than the rest, even though they were in the top 3 easiest colors to produce out of all of those units. I think they might have been displaying some dysfunctional ones .

-Jakob

Probably, they are very pricy, I wouldn't take a chance displaying +2000$ lasers...

Oh, they would... They had a fully functional, Titanium Saphire tunable laser with an "extension" making it capable of like 280-2400nm of gapless tuning. Oh and a power range of up to 5 watts. If you're wondering the cost, it was around $150k.

-Jakob

One word :




WOW

Baltimore!?! I live a lot closer to Baltimore than any one else here and this is news to me...what was it, for people who put on laser shows? I read the Baltimore Sun everyday so I don't know how I missed hearing about this one!

Oh No! Now pianoman will never be happy with a <5 mW yellow CNI pen! -Glenn

@Schreken_Light: It's a damn shame you didn't hear about it! You really missed out on something truly incredible. Not to rub it in, but they not only had an exhibit room full of insane DPSS and fiber laser units, but also a bunch of other technologies such as a pair of optical tweezers (that I got to use ) and two or three white lasers (I think all of them were continuous spectrum, meaning you get a smooth rainbow when you break up the light). To make that even better, they had a crapload of short courses (~4-5 hours long) about tons of different subjects. They cost $155 per course though. The one I took dealt with moving micron and sub-micron level objects with infrared lasers light AKA optical tweezers and it was ballin'. I'm really sorry you missed out.

@scopeguy20: Although it won't seem as impressive as the 3 watt 593.5nm fiber laser that I saw about it, I'm still going to be thrilled to have it . And it comes in such a snazzy little housing . Can't wait.

-Jakob