Questions regarding beam temperature at impact...

Hello to all you people out there in LaserLand. I'm new to the forums and admit that I'm a laser newbie who really doesn't know all that much about lasers, but I've always found them to be very entertaining and interesting.

I'm in the process of designing a project which will be using a laser (if possible) and have a couple questions. If someone with the knowledge and experience could help me i would greatly appreciate it, very much!

After browsing the forums i found a laser setup that looks very promising for my application. This was the high powered keychain (200mw, 215 mw) lasers that use the FlexDive setup. The reason this attracted my eyes was because of it monster output, and size. Size being a priority because my project will need to be inclosed in a small cylinder.

In order for me to use a laser it must be able to meet certain criteria
and i'm not sure if it's possible, this is where help is needed.

Has anyone ever used a laser beam to heat/vaporize a liquid? If so and the results were positive then maybe you can help. The liquid I'm trying to vaporize should have a flash point of around 200F/90C.

Is it possible to use a 200mw (or lower) beam at point blank range with the proper optics and focus to accomplish this? If higher output is needed then what would it take?

Thanks in advance for all help,

Marc

Re: Questions regarding beam temperature at impact

Im not sure but it sounds like you will want it on for extended periods of time...which means that jayrob's keychain build (i think is what you are talking about) Doesnt have enough heatsinking. Even if you did jay's pocket mini it still provides more heatsinking than the keychain build. You still have to keep a duty cycle though :-/

Re: Questions regarding beam temperature at impact

Hey there M&M, thanks for the reply! Actually i'm lucky in the long duty cycle area. The laser would only need to operate for about 6 seconds at a time. Say about 6 second on, 30 sec-1 minute break another 6 on......repeated for about 7-8 minutes, then off. However it would need to be able to vaporize on power up and the beam would have to cover about a 2-5mm circle in diameter.

Thanks again, you guys have a great forum here

Re: Questions regarding beam temperature at impact

What did you have in mind for the liquid? If its transparent you may need to add some dark colour dye, and what kind of volume of liquid do you plan on dealing with?

You may need more than 200mW to pull this one off, but im only guessing here, never tried it

Sorry everyone this is my first post i hope i am posting in the right area. does anyone know the actual temperature of a 200mw laser beam? Thank you

Yeah... you should have opened a new Thread...
rather than Hijacking this one....


BTW... Welcome to the Forum...


Jerry

Sorry, but you can't speak about "temperature of the beam" ..... it's an unexistent thing.

That what you can get is the power of the beam (or, better said, the real power of the beam, cause sometimes builders speaks about the power of the diode, but don't mentions loss caused from optics), and, depending from the materials at which you shine it, the temperature generated from this power.

But as i said, it depend from what is the material, grade of absorption and reflection at that wavelenght, and thermal conductivity of the material, so it's an almost-impossible question to answer in simple way.

Edit, ah, well, lasersbee just posted more quick than me

Back to the liquid.. I too recommend something very dark, and oqague in color and transparency. Also, the more shimmer, or shine that the outside surface of the liquid has, the more light that it will reflect.. This is why I believe liquids are so hard to work with for this app.

MS72 said:

Has anyone ever used a laser beam to heat/vaporize a liquid? If so and the results were positive then maybe you can help. The liquid I'm trying to vaporize should have a flash point of around 200F/90C.

Is it possible to use a 200mw (or lower) beam at point blank range with the proper optics and focus to accomplish this? If higher output is needed then what would it take?

Click to expand...

In very short words, "no" and "a lot".

uhm, too short, i guess (LOL)

Ok, seriously, for the liquids, you need too much power, for make the thing feasable ..... just for give you an idea, in a thread about cutting pizza with laser, there's this video that shows peoples making hot coffee and water for tea, using a 2 KW cutting laser ..... look how much time is needed for boil the liquid in the cups with 2 Kilowatts of IR, and you get an idea about what i mean

Sorry for posting here i read the thread as Questions regarding beam temperature at impact... and i thought it was ok to ask the question. sorry i posted in the wrong place. does anyone know how i can remove the post? thank you.