Rigel Series from Laserglow

I just received my 5wm yellow pointer from Laserglow, and I noticed a strange behavior of it. When I first turn it on, it's quite dim, but the more I use it, the brighter it gets, which tops out after about 5 seconds of "warm up" time. Then it's fine for a while until I leave it powered off for a minute or so at which point I have to repeat the process all over again.


Does this seem normal for this type of device? I've never bought this wavelength before so I don't know if it's a function of the laser itself or if I've got a defective driver.


Anyone else see this before?

Completely normal behavior for the Rigel, and honestly, for any DPSS laser.

DPSS lasers have an infrared diode pump which 'inject' light into a crystal set, to convert the IR light to visible light. This takes a while to 'warm up' and get to its optimal temperature.

There's a sticky about "DPSS Greens" here in one of the forums - what applies to greens applies moreso to the yellows. (more complex dpss process.)

My Rigel behaves the exact same way. It'll start out dim and then 'jump up' to brighter. You may even see the Rigel output green at times when its cold.

Nothing to worry about at all.

593.4nm is achieved through a highly inefficient process known as sum-frequency generation, as opposed to just plain ol' frequency doubling to halve the wavelength with greens. An IR diode pumps a special crystal which lases at two different wavelengths at the same time, these lines are combined by the next crystal to create the 593.4nm laser light. I believe it's on the order of 1-3% efficient. (Please forgive any errors, it's been quite a while since I've read up on SFG or the common lines used for yellow creation)