How lasers work in practice

Bluefan · Dec 8, 2011

A while back Destin (from the smarter every day channel) came to visit me in the Netherlands and we made some video's with lasers. Here's the first one with a HeNe laser at my university:

There's more to come!

lasersbee · Dec 8, 2011

Cool video. I had never seen an Open Cavity Laser before.

I wonder if we could make one by removing the 2 mirrors
of a HeNe tube and placing the mirrors farther away from
the tube...:thinking:

I also liked this video explaining the basic theory of the
functioning of a Laser in very easy to understand terms
for any members that did not know.

Jerry

offroadfreak8582 · Dec 8, 2011

sweet

Go netherlands

greetings,,

Cyparagon · Dec 8, 2011

lasersbee said:
I wonder if we could make one by removing the 2 mirrors
of a HeNe tube and placing the mirrors farther away from
the tube...:thinking:

Nope. They're hard sealed. If you remove the mirrors, you remove the seal and the gas leaks out. You also need brewster stems to minimize the loss between the gas environment and the air environment, or the losses will be too high and it won't lase.

Bluefan · Dec 11, 2011

Indeed, normal HeNe lasers are one piece with the mirrors also acting as a barrier to the outside world. Changing a tube like that would almsot require the resources of making one from scratch (thinks like pure gasses, vacuum system, bake-out ed).
I have two Spectra Physics SP-120, one barely living and one reasonably fine. They are very old, but external mirror HeNe's none the less.
The one at the university is probably 3 years old, it's used in a practical course I helped setting up. It's made by Lasos, although I can't find this tubes with brewster angle windows at their website.

blakegriffin · Dec 11, 2011

cant wait for more!!

532 with Envy · Dec 11, 2011

That's a great, clearly put explanation of how the HeNe works! Thanks for sharing the video.
Looking forward to more!:beer:

sinner · Dec 11, 2011

Hahahaha, you speak awesome dutch.. (the choice of words)
you totally word-raped that guy !

EDIT: Yahoo , 100th post

Bluefan · Dec 12, 2011

After thanking everybody in dutch I didn't expect him asking if I called him something, so being surprised I replied in dutch. We had great fun

The video is also posted on the university site, which is of course in dutch:
Practica TNW

How lasers work in practice

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