Argon goodness in a handheld!(pic heavy)

Hey everyone,

Soo, this is an idea I have been working on for awhile. I have to say my favorite wavelength is definitely 488nm. however, the diodes for this wavelength are out of my price range so i worked on this little project to get as close as i can to the real thing. I've done some searching on the forum and haven't seen many people experiment with this.
keep in mind I built this on a budget Im sure there are better ways of doing this and I'm not an optic expert.

these are still preliminary results!

so here is a look =]

I used a cute little fiber optic cable to connect the Argon laser head(JDSU 2214-40ML) to an AixiZ module. to do this I had to build a rough apparatus that fit onto the head. the X and Y axis can be adjusted with the screws to the laser head.
Note: an old CD with a funnel apoxyed on. The cable was then glued to the funnel and the adjustments are done with the screws. I have seen the actually setup and mounts on ebay but they seem to be really pricy :/

On the other end of the 10' cable I had to get creative. The diameter of the cable is very small and was hard to work with. Again using materials readily available around the house I pressed a pencil eraser in an AixiZ module. I drilled a 1/16in hole in the back and inserted the fiber just behind where the lens would sit. that was then apoxyed

Ok great, lets clean up that beam. I used a Jet Laser 10X beam expander.

Raw output without the beam expander.

In testing I achieved 28.4mW with a G2 lens, 23.1mW with an acrylic lens. my Argon was running at full power 10.60A. typically that would be alittle over 150mW but clearly I am losing some photons. I am sure I could approve upon this but these are still early results. Even with the Argon laser running on Idle it still produced a great beam but just dimmer of course.

Lets look at some beam shots!
The fiber optic cable was very flexible and could be pointed around like any other handheld. The divergence was not awesome but the beam was very visible with LIGHT smoke. I Used a Nikon with long exposure but didn't have a tripod that's why some of the pictures are blurry. I'm an awful photographer.

(Low power while holding the beam expander. It's hard to see my hand)

Next Id like to try this outside on a clear night. The cable is long enough to reach out the door where the laser cart is located. wouldn't that be cool:yh:

Thanks for looking :wave:
thoughts are always welcome

jefferson

I dig it! Awesome looking project! +3 when I get home

Very innovative DwU.
That wavelength is beautiful, the look of that 488nm in the fiber optic cable is almost as impressive as the beam itself!

+1 Nice work sir

Seeing the 488 from an argon is awesome. Seeing the 488 from an argon seemingly snaking along the floor is WAY MORE AWESOME!

Real nice man I bet people whom walk into the room are just dazzled.

Thanks guys! This should probably be under experiments and modifications but gas lasers is applicable.
I wasn't 100% sure how this was going to turn out. If I had a larger size fiber it might increase my output. Seems like it might be bottle necked into that small fiber.
I was surprised by the fiber glowing. Trust me, in person it looks just as impessive if not more! I'll try to get some good pictures of this through a diffraction grating and a beam shot into the night sky when I get home

I've done something similar with mine, and some of my HeNe lasers....the yellow looks amazing like this. you can really see the color well like this!

Very inventive, and I too agree, that is the coolest looking "snake" draped across the floor - 488nm snake - shame your taking such a power loss through the fibre

Very nice :beer: 488nm snake :drool:

vk2fro said:

Very inventive, and I too agree, that is the coolest looking "snake" draped across the floor - 488nm snake - shame your taking such a power loss through the fibre

Click to expand...

yeah, you do take a good hit on power from using fiber, but if its properly aligned and cut, it shouldn't be very much.

what diameter is your fiber? I have tons of 65-85um, been holding onto it until I find a cheap way to terminate it. Dunno if that will happen

You will also want to focus it down to a point to efficiently inject the fiber, keeping an eye on the convergence angle, making sure convergence angle is still less than the fiber's acceptance angle.

For the final output, try using a single aspheric. The larger, the better. If you go larger diameter fiber, you will need an equally larger aspheric to obtain the same divergence. Remember, is not gaussian output unless you have tiny singlemode fiber. Therefore, you are simply imaging the face of the fiber output facet, hence always a perfect circle homogenous random ploarized (I think) output.

In your pics, I thought the fiber had opaque sheath, was the glow still getting through that?! I think a neat project would be to light up the house via laser beams along the ceiling, but would be much safer and more impressive to use hair-thin fiber

I just recently saw my first argon beam, ~80mW according to the speedometer ;-) locked at 488nm.

BShanahan14rulz said:

what diameter is your fiber? I have tons of 65-85um, been holding onto it until I find a cheap way to terminate it. Dunno if that will happen

You will also want to focus it down to a point to efficiently inject the fiber, keeping an eye on the convergence angle, making sure convergence angle is still less than the fiber's acceptance angle.

For the final output, try using a single aspheric. The larger, the better. If you go larger diameter fiber, you will need an equally larger aspheric to obtain the same divergence. Remember, is not gaussian output unless you have tiny singlemode fiber. Therefore, you are simply imaging the face of the fiber output facet, hence always a perfect circle homogenous random ploarized (I think) output.

In your pics, I thought the fiber had opaque sheath, was the glow still getting through that?! I think a neat project would be to light up the house via laser beams along the ceiling, but would be much safer and more impressive to use hair-thin fiber

Click to expand...

The fiber is labeled .365, but don't quote me because I'm not looking at it this second (For the past week ive been away from this project.) the fiber was something that happen to be laying around, I know it's function was intend for laser use but what specifically for, I'm not sure. The coupling on the end of the fiber is designed for some other type of device not my argon laser head. So what I tried to do was line up the beam with the end of the fiber. Eventually I found the sweet spot. The sheath is opaque and seem to brighten as the I turned up the power, I wonder if that means the convergence angle is not correct? I don't have specs on the fiber.

new results!
44.1mW