Ruby rod

Is it possible to pump a ruby rod with LD's?

VirtueViolater said:

Is it possible to pump a ruby rod with LD's?

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You could try it. I seen it done on neodinium glass rods. There are different grades of them for different pump methods. Google it up check the ones on eBay

trussmonkey25 said:

You could try it. I seen it done on neodinium glass rods. There are different grades of them for different pump methods. Google it up check the ones on eBay

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Thanks, I will. I saw a ruby rod 3/4" × 18" on ebay, wish I could afford it lol ($3500)

I've looked into this and it turns out it is difficult, but possible. For one, ruby is 3-level so you must pump the entire rod or the non-inverted population will simply absorb the laser output. Also, the upper state lifetime is 3ms, so that is your rough timescale for pumping. Plus, ruby is not great at dissipating heat, so CW pumping will require well designed heat management. That being said, ruby does have a strong absorption band at 405nm, so you could experiment with diode pumping fairly cheaply! Diode pumped ruby lasers have been built, but they are generally pretty tiny.

ultimate kaiser has a ruby rod and depending on the length you would need a lot of what ever to pump it. A big xeon flash lamp is the best chance at pumping the rod