CNI releases 577 DPSS laser!

Been checking the CNI website the last few days & they've been releasing tons of new wavelength's recently!

Looks like we finally have a true yellow!

577 nm Yellow Laser, Solid State Laser, Yellow Laser Module | CNIlaser

-Alex

Hap said:

Been checking the CNI website the last few days & they've been releasing tons of new wavelength's recently!

Looks like we finally have a true yellow!

577 nm Yellow Laser, Solid State Laser, Yellow Laser Module | CNIlaser

-Alex

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Not sure I even want to know the price... Look at the size of the head too, that's fairly large for <=100mW. Must be real inefficient, very complicated or both.

diachi said:

Not sure I even want to know the price... Look at the size of the head too, that's fairly large for <=100mW. Must be real inefficient, very complicated or both.

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Oh yeah! I don't think we'll ever see this in a portable laser anytime soon, but we can dream

-Alex

Hey, if you're interested, you could always build a Copper Bromide laser, gets you 578nm.

Far easier said than done...

Cool, but the price would probably be comparable to your average automobile. I think I'm content with my 561nm and 589nm for now.

Razako said:

Cool, but the price would probably be comparable to your average automobile. I think I'm content with my 561nm and 589nm for now.

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Yeah haha. My 589 suits me just fine too

-Alex

bloompyle said:

Hey, if you're interested, you could always build a Copper Bromide laser, gets you 578nm.

Far easier said than done...

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Arguably easier than DIY DPSS yellow... The electronics are fairly simple (Although dangerous), tube construction isn't terribly difficult (relative to other gas lasers) and they have great gain so they're easier than many gas lasers to get lasing.

diachi said:

Arguably easier than DIY DPSS yellow... The electronics are fairly simple (Although dangerous), tube construction isn't terribly difficult (relative to other gas lasers) and they have great gain so they're easier than many gas lasers to get lasing.

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Assembly would't be difficult, no, but acquiring everything for assy would be a royal pain more than everything. Sourcing all the materials would also be costly.

Whereas w/ a DIY DPSS, it's only a matter of sourcing a KTP with the correct coatings, and a pair of mirrors. Expensive, yes, but it's just like aligning any other frequency doubled DPSS. Just a matter of having the right three parts for the job.

bloompyle said:

Assembly would't be difficult, no, but acquiring everything for assy would be a royal pain more than everything. Sourcing all the materials would also be costly.

Whereas w/ a DIY DPSS, it's only a matter of sourcing a KTP with the correct coatings, and a pair of mirrors. Expensive, yes, but it's just like aligning any other frequency doubled DPSS. Just a matter of having the right three parts for the job.

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What? You can get all of the parts for a CuBr laser on eBay (Although many may be more convenient to buy at your local hardware store...). The hardest part to find is going to be a suitable vacuum pump. Alignment is going to be easy - Copper Halide can even lase without any cavity mirrors - although many designs use a silvered mirror for the HR and either no OC or just a piece of plain old glass for the OC.

You're forgetting a laser crystal for the fundamental wavelength that also has the correct coatings (also expensive, especially for Yellow). Pump diode, potentially pump correction optics, diode driver, temperature control, something to mount it all on (plus adjustable mounts for the ideally both mirrors and KTP. Sourcing KTP/YAG/Whatever coated for Yellow isn't going to be easy. Green is fairly straightforward and fairly cheap. Yellow not so much. I'm not even sure what process is being used by CNI to produce 577nm - I'm seeing references to OPSL and frequency doubled Yb:Fiber lasers - neither of which are as simple as you make out.

If you want high output but are afraid of sophisticated optics and can handle complex electronic design, try a copper vapor laser. I managed to hack together a TEA copper vapor unit in only a few days by using an acetylene torch to vaporize copper and blow it past a spark gap. This was obviously only useful for short operating runs but produced over a watt of 510 nm and 578 nm. A high power version of the Blumlein circuit used in N2 lasers was all that was needed to trigger it.

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diachi said:

What? You can get all of the parts for a CuBr laser on eBay (Although many may be more convenient to buy at your local hardware store...). The hardest part to find is going to be a suitable vacuum pump. Alignment is going to be easy - Copper Halide can even lase without any cavity mirrors - although many designs use a silvered mirror for the HR and either no OC or just a piece of plain old glass for the OC.

You're forgetting a laser crystal for the fundamental wavelength that also has the correct coatings (also expensive, especially for Yellow). Pump diode, potentially pump correction optics, diode driver, temperature control, something to mount it all on (plus adjustable mounts for the ideally both mirrors and KTP. Sourcing KTP/YAG/Whatever coated for Yellow isn't going to be easy. Green is fairly straightforward and fairly cheap. Yellow not so much. I'm not even sure what process is being used by CNI to produce 577nm - I'm seeing references to OPSL and frequency doubled Yb:Fiber lasers - neither of which are as simple as you make out.

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Sure, every component of the power supply straight from ebay, easy peasy (slight sarcasm). Then there's the tube crafting, getting the proper temperature, pure Neon, decent Cu/CuBr/CuCl, and getting all of it to behave together. Sure, the alignment isn't a problem, and I've already got a mirror/window set just waiting to be put to use, but crafting a CuBr isn't necessarily an overnight project.

Though maybe I am greatly overestimating it since I was never able to get around to it. The managers of the dormitory I live in get farily upset when they see untidy living conditions.

For some reason I was basing my response on the idea of recreating a 561nm - I have no idea why...

I didn't mention diode and driver, or any other item you'd need for all solid state, because I figured they went without saying, I was only listing to difficult to acquire parts. In the case of 561nm, the gain crystal really requires nothing special. As long as it's broadband IR HT, you're golden, pun intended. The external optics and KTP however would need to be specially produced.

For 577nm, I do not think CNI is using the OPSL method. The Coherent 577nm OPSLs are available up to 3W - CNI tops out at 100mW. They also label the devices as "Solid State". So unless CNI is labeling OPSL under the solid-state category, I'd assess they are ussing a different method.


EDIT: I did almost go through with the TEA CuBr idea, just didn't want to pester my suitemate with the loud clapping of the TEA... Even posted about it at some point on here. It is now part of a long list of "to-do's"

could be a nice addition to a projector.... given the output outweighs the cost... in dreams... sigh

10fenny said:

could be a nice addition to a projector.... given the output outweighs the cost... in dreams... sigh

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Max output CNI is selling is 100mW....

Though copper vapor lasers used to be the go-to for laser projectors with a lot of green and yellow. Before laserscopes and mobolazers came around.

Looks like CNI is 'doping' ND:YAG with something else to get 1154nm frequency doubled to 577nm. Not sure what yet.

Cool stuff, a shame I got out of the hobby -- if this happened 3 years ago I'd be pushing them to get that in something portable.

I've been trying to work out whether it could be a SFG rather than SHG. The closest result so far is (980+1415=578.99)

But ZRaffle, you look like you have hit it the SHG part correctly. I have found this article experimenting with Periodically-poled Lithium Niobate (PPLN). They achieve SHG of 1154nm with 20% optical efficiency. link for further reading

There is also this abstract which further confirms it.

We present a power-scalable approach for yellow laser-light generation based on standard Ytterbium (Yb) doped fibers. To force the cavity to lase at 1154 nm, far above the gain-maximum, measures must be taken to fulfill lasing condition and to suppress competing amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) in the high-gain region. To prove the principle we built a fiber-laser cavity and a fiber-amplifier both at 1154 nm. In between cavity and amplifier we suppressed the ASE by 70 dB using a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) based filter. Finally we demonstrated efficient single pass frequency doubling to 577 nm with a periodically poled lithium niobate crystal (PPLN). With our linearly polarized 1154 nm master oscillator power fiber amplifier (MOFA) system we achieved slope efficiencies of more than 15 % inside the cavity and 24 % with the fiber-amplifier. The frequency doubling followed the predicted optimal efficiency achievable with a PPLN crystal. So far we generated 1.5 W at 1154nm and 90 mW at 577 nm. Our MOFA approach for generation of 1154 nm laser radiation is power-scalable by using multi-stage amplifiers and large mode-area fibers and is therefore very promising for building a high power yellow laser-light source of several tens of Watt.

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Here is the link if anyone wants it (link)

The OPSL 577nm from coherent is available up to 6W

And how much would that be? $16000 or more :takeit: