Nd:Yag questions

I have a home build cnc plasma cutter and was interested in modifying it to do laser cutting/etching looked around and found that CO2 lasers are common but they require large space along with dangerous power supplies.

Found a surplus source for 100w 808nm diode bars and thought maybe I would build myself a decently powered Nd:Yag laser for fun and a learning experience.

Found this surplus rod Meredith Instruments : Nd.YAG Laser Rod 101mm x 6.35mm [YAGR-3] - $150.00 - The source for laser surplus

Thought I would try to side pump it with maybe three of the arrays, not sure about cooling.

Kind of trying to learn as I go, thought I would get a rod and try to put together some optics get it working low power and then see if I could ramp things up to achieve something like 40w.

Anyone have any thoughts on wether or not this would be possible, is this rod a bad idea? i.e. i was hoping to grow into it.

Thanks in advance and sorry for the noobish questions.

don't think the rod itself will handle 100w...
I may be wrong tho.
good luck

This rod may be for pulsed applications, which use a different doping level. But if you want to get only 40W out you definately won't blow the rod, but your setup may be less efficient than you'd like because the absorbtion of the pump is too high or low. You'd have to find out what doping level this rad has, and if that is suitable.
I think the smaller rod they sell would be already good enough for 40W. How cheap can you get 100W diode bars? Are they CW or QCW?

Find a copy of "Solid State Lasers" by Koechner. Its insane to start with just a pile of parts and expect to get there. If you cannot find it, Silfvast's book is not bad. Neither book is hard to read.

I've worked on big yags, there are a lot of little details like the volume of the pumped region in the crystal, and large yags are almost always side pumped with a different doping then the pulsed or lamp pumped rods.

Steve