Is It A Good Idea To Microwave Laser Pointers?

YouTube - Is It A Good Idea To Microwave Laser Pointers?

Can't figure out how to embed it. Oh well enjoy.

just copy the video ID and put it into

btw this has been already posted afaik

I've seen bare HeNe tubes microwaved on YouTube and they do lase!

M

Kinda amazing that one of them still worked, even with the lens molten to the point where a very odd beam comes out.

I've seen bare HeNe tubes microwaved on YouTube and they do lase!

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Question remains: for how long?

I suspect many gas lasers would actually lase when placed in a microwave oven. They'd probably overheat etc in a short while, but RF-pumping isn't all that uncommon to begin with (for CO2 lasers etc).

Benm said:

Kinda amazing that one of them still worked, even with the lens molten to the point where a very odd beam comes out.



Question remains: for how long?

I suspect many gas lasers would actually lase when placed in a microwave oven. They'd probably overheat etc in a short while, but RF-pumping isn't all that uncommon to begin with (for CO2 lasers etc).

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With the most common internal mirror HeNe's you find today, heating isn't a problem on the tube itself, but if you get carried away you can pop the glass/metal seals holding the mirrors on, since the metal is what will be heating, not the glass. Back in my gas laser heyday about 10 years ago, i'd regularly nuke them for a few seconds when I got an unknown tube in just to see what the plasma discharge color looked like to see if it was an old tube or was worth messing with.

I also owned a RF excited SP 115 for a while too. Tube was EOL though so no lasing but it did glow nicely. Sold it to Sam Goldwasser but unfortunatly it didn't survive shipping to him even double boxed and wrapped in about 5" thick layer of bubblewrap. The tube design needed for RF drive just turned out to be too fragile to survive the UPS gorillas apparently.

1)They should have been turned on first.
2)Don't batteries explode under these conditions?
3)Speaking of batteries, they should nuke a dead 18650 Lithium Ion

millirad said:

1)They should have been turned on first.
2)Don't batteries explode under these conditions?
3)Speaking of batteries, they should nuke a dead 18650 Lithium Ion

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Send them one and they will nuke it.

It's funny... if you have to ask "Is it a good idea to microwave..." then it probably isn't.

-Trevor