Knife Edged M140s

I got this crazy idea wanting to make a knife edge using 4 (later 8) M140s. No PBS (for now) just 4 mirrors reflecting beams 90 degrees to making a nice row stacked for the anamorphic prisms to clean the beam up. Not super advanced it would seem.

If this works out nicely Ill mount it to a larger aluminum board and make a second module exactly like the the first one. Giving a total of 8 diodes.

A PBS woule be used to combine the two stacked beams. The unit would be mounted next to the first on the aluminum board. I want 10 Watts after all the beam correction so that is going to dictate the amount diodes. Beam quality is everything.

Of course this is all just a crack dream as of now

There is a ton of stuff I need to figure out to pull this off:

What is the optimal distance between the flex mounts mirrors
What is the best distance from the M140s to the mirrors that will knife edge the beams.
Stacking the beams I would think the fast axis should be on the y axis …
Do anamorphic prisms make sense at all =)
For the anamorphic prisms to work I am going to need a waveplate I would think? Is it cheaper to just line up more diodes or get a fancy shmancy waveplate?

Point is there is a lot I need to learn. Searching the net is not giving much on specifics. Was wondering where is the best source of this information? A diagram of a good finish model with be great! Also if I make a few CAD drawing of what I am thinking about are there people here that would be willing to point out things that can be improved or corrected?

All the best :beer:
Onryo

Look here, it has been done with 10 diodes.
http://laserpointerforums.com/f65/8-diode-445-build-64296.html
http://laserpointerforums.com/f65/10-diode-445-build-67689.html

If you're stacking 4, the beam will already be square. You'll end up making the beam worse by using prisms.

It'll change the beam from llll to OOOO

Thx guys. Blord the URLs you gave me are solid gold. Thx! Any scrap of information I can get is more then welcomed. What got me really interested was this guys 12 diode design at 5:20



He put this on a 20x30cm alu board. He is using prisms with a magnification of 1.8 at the exit there. I hear what your saying Cyparagon. Lets say hypothetically you stack 4 beams with the fast axis on y so you can get as close to the edge as possible. Beams being say 2x5mm. So you got a stack that is 8x5mm |||| .That seems kind of squire me. What I want is to keep the divergence to less then 1 mrad Might sound crazy ... In the video you can see how he set up his prisms. He says a magnification of 1.8. I have seen other videos where these guys are keeping there beams tight and out to over 100m!

All the best
Onryo!

They're like 2.5 mRad before correction, aren't they? That means you'd have to magnify 3x to get <1mRad. That means a 24x5mm beam to use your example. Good luck with that.

Cyparagon said:

They're like 2.5 mRad before correction, aren't they? That means you'd have to magnify 3x to get <1mRad. That means a 24x5mm beam to use your example. Good luck with that.

Click to expand...

Sounds like I want my cookies and eat them too as far as the beam goes. Fat beams stuck and divergence is even worse. I would keep this KISS from the start and as I progress and learn the ins and outs Ill progress from there. Blords 8 diode example looked like a perfect place to start. Just sent a mail to DTR asking about x8 M140s.

I am looking at the Andy's diode lenses. They look a lot like the Roithner 7020h lens. Why do some people use them? I mean the loss in them is huge? Does anybody know what kind of collimating lens he is using here? Andy's 8 diode knife edge