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laser gases that emit in the near infrared frequencies

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akmetal

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Does anyone know if there is an exhaustive book on every gas known to man that lists the emission frequencies?

For instance CO2 primarily emits at - ~ 10,000 nm
ND doped YAG - 1,000 nm

I am ultimately looking for a gas that emits at ~ 1,000 to 1,200 nm

I built out an entire CO2 laser in solid works with custom aluminum options, coolant systems the whole 9 yards then realized that the frequency range will not meet my needs. I do hope to use gas as gas lasers are typically more powerful than crystal lasers but said gas has to exist. I am now very scared I wasted an epic amount of time (like thousands of hours).
 





diachi

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I do hope to use gas as gas lasers are typically more powerful than crystal lasers but said gas has to exist.


How did you come to that conclusion? Gas lasers are generally speaking less efficient than solid state lasers. Even the largest HeNe lasers can only manage a few 10s of milliwatts. The largest argon laser ever built produced a few hundred watts output with (IIRC) a couple hundred kW input power.
 

Encap

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Thousands of hours wasted---yikes.
I think you are pretty much SOL on a high power gas laser that outputs in the 1000nm to 1200nm range regardless, from eveything I can find.

What is it that you want to accomplish with a laser?
 

akmetal

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Is it possible to immerse a crystal in its pumping medium without a “flash tube” per say?

It sounds like I am going to have to convert to a crystal laser and use the gas chamber as a pumping medium.

Is this feasible?

I am looking to be able to cut metal at a distance.
 
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You may have no other option than to go solid state. Why those wavelengths and at what power?
 

diachi

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Is it possible to immerse a crystal in its pumping medium without a “flash tube” per say?

It sounds like I am going to have to convert to a crystal laser and use the gas chamber as a pumping medium.

Is this feasible?

I am looking to be able to cut metal at a distance.

What do you mean by "pumping medium"? Gas chamber? Why would you use a gas chamber?

There are a variety of ways to pump/cool/mount/handle a solid state laser gain medium, varying from relatively simple to hugely complex.

What power are you looking for? What are you trying to achieve? What sort of resources do you have? How much do you want to spend? What's your background?

You said you are "looking to cut metal at a distance", what distance? Why? How thick is the metal?

We need a lot more details before we can help.

A problem well stated is a problem half solved.
 

Encap

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What do you mean by "pumping medium"? Gas chamber? Why would you use a gas chamber?

There are a variety of ways to pump/cool/mount/handle a solid state laser gain medium, varying from relatively simple to hugely complex.

What power are you looking for? What are you trying to achieve? What sort of resources do you have? How much do you want to spend? What's your background?

You said you are "looking to cut metal at a distance", what distance? Why? How thick is the metal?

We need a lot more details before we can help.

A problem well stated is a problem half solved.

Ditto the above from Diachi and others, was just about to post similar questions. The OP is making little if any sense.
Sounds more daydream related than laser related at this point.

akmetal:
Is pretty clear that you have little if any knowledge or education concerning lasers in general as well as real world laser capabilities, and uses despite spending "thousands hour hours" building a CO2 laser that you say is useless for your purposes, which alone makes no sense at all.

You are not giving enough information that makes any real world sense to be able to answer your questions or point you in the right direction.

There is nothing you are ever going to do that has not been or is not already being done metal cutting wise.

Give us real world details or just google what you want to do and find out how others do it .
 
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akmetal

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What do you mean by "pumping medium"? Gas chamber? Why would you use a gas chamber?

Because it’s already designed like that in solid works. I can make tweaks but I would hate to reduce the entire thing.

There are a variety of ways to pump/cool/mount/handle a solid state laser gain medium, varying from relatively simple to hugely complex.

What power are you looking for? What are you trying to achieve? What sort of resources do you have? How much do you want to spend? What's your background?

I have solid works, cnc machine capable of cutting aluminum, 3” ID flagged glass tube I had made. Vacuum gear pump for recirc and gas cooling. A good relationship with swagelok for parts. I have some plans for a peltier cooler

I am a chemical engineer working on a masters in electrical as well.

You said you are "looking to cut metal at a distance", what distance? Why? How thick is the metal?

Sheet metal maybe slightly thicker am thinking 10-40 kw of power.

We need a lot more details before we can help.

A problem well stated is a problem half solved.
 

diachi

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10-40kW power average or peak?

How much are you willing to spend?
 

akmetal

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I will post more from my lap top soon. Typing on a phone makes things a little tougher
 
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See, this is a perfect example of how stating your problem inaccurately can cause you unending anguish. You initially stated your problem as "I need a high power CO2 gas laser," which, according to your own admission, was in error. What makes this situation worse, is you haven't learned from your mistake. You're asking here "what gas laser can I use to cut sheet metal?"

You need to ask yourself a series of questions. Why does the metal need to be cut at a distance? Why sheet metal? Why with a laser? What will the sheet metal construct? Maybe your problem is entirely unrelated to lasers! If I may recite one of my favorite bash.org quotes:

<glyph> For example - if you came in here asking "how do I use a jackhammer" we might ask "why do you need to use a jackhammer"
<glyph> If the answer to the latter question is "to knock my grandmother's head off to let out the evil spirits that gave her cancer", then maybe the problem is actually unrelated to jackhammers
 

akmetal

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10-40kW power average or peak?

How much are you willing to spend?

I plan on building this completely from scratch but even then materials will probably cost me several thousand. Although removing the CVD diamond from the equation by going to 1,100 nm will save about $900. Raw aluminum is not too spendy but PEEK for the insulators is spendy

I was reading that CO2 is in the 10,000 nm mid to far IR which is good for cutting organic material but in order to slice through metal like its butter you need around 1,100 nm which then puts you in the ND YAG laser. But I was thinking ... there has to some gas known to man that can produce the same freqencies as the ND YAG laser. But if gas lasers cant gain the same beam output power as crystal or solid state lasers then I may have a design bust. Although I dont know why you could just just add more power to a gas laser and make sure the gas is circulated and cooled as well as the optics are liquid cooled ... which my design incorporates.

The only relief was that going from 10,000 nm to 1,100 nm my outlet window just got alot cheaper going from CVD diamond to partially reflective glass basicly ... at least as far as my knowlage.

It would be really cool if there was a book on exactly why ND YAG releases 1000 nm and CO2 releases 10,000 nm. I understand there are vibrational, rotational and transnational energies but how do the 2 specificly correspond. I mean could we artificailly produce Taaffeite and dope it with Samarium ...

Polishing the mirrors in a vacuum and coating them will be a pain but doable.
 

diachi

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I plan on building this completely from scratch but even then materials will probably cost me several thousand. Although removing the CVD diamond from the equation by going to 1,100 nm will save about $900. Raw aluminum is not too spendy but PEEK for the insulators is spendy

I was reading that CO2 is in the 10,000 nm mid to far IR which is good for cutting organic material but in order to slice through metal like its butter you need around 1,100 nm which then puts you in the ND YAG laser. But I was thinking ... there has to some gas known to man that can produce the same freqencies as the ND YAG laser. But if gas lasers cant gain the same beam output power as crystal or solid state lasers then I may have a design bust. Although I dont know why you could just just add more power to a gas laser and make sure the gas is circulated and cooled as well as the optics are liquid cooled ... which my design incorporates.

The only relief was that going from 10,000 nm to 1,100 nm my outlet window just got alot cheaper going from CVD diamond to partially reflective glass basicly ... at least as far as my knowlage.

It would be really cool if there was a book on exactly why ND YAG releases 1000 nm and CO2 releases 10,000 nm. I understand there are vibrational, rotational and transnational energies but how do the 2 specificly correspond. I mean could we artificailly produce Taaffeite and dope it with Samarium ...

Polishing the mirrors in a vacuum and coating them will be a pain but doable.


Cyparagon makes good points. Would take a look at those and have a think about your project, then get back to us.

Wouldn't be too worried about saving $900 on a project that'd likely cost at least 6 figures. I don't think you understand the complexity.
 

akmetal

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See, this is a perfect example of how stating your problem inaccurately can cause you unending anguish. You initially stated your problem as "I need a high power CO2 gas laser," which, according to your own admission, was in error. What makes this situation worse, is you haven't learned from your mistake. You're asking here "what gas laser can I use to cut sheet metal?"

You need to ask yourself a series of questions. Why does the metal need to be cut at a distance? Why sheet metal? Why with a laser? What will the sheet metal construct? Maybe your problem is entirely unrelated to lasers! If I may recite one of my favorite bash.org quotes:

<glyph> For example - if you came in here asking "how do I use a jackhammer" we might ask "why do you need to use a jackhammer"
<glyph> If the answer to the latter question is "to knock my grandmother's head off to let out the evil spirits that gave her cancer", then maybe the problem is actually unrelated to jackhammers

I want to stay away from the application other than to explain the need for a specific frequency. It just gets political and then no fun interesting technical discussion happens and I could just go to some political forum and accomplish nothing and then your time is gone lol.

Then you go down this whole rabbit hole about ... well I dont like why your building this and another guy is like thats way cool but all of that detracts from actual technical discussion.
 

akmetal

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Cyparagon makes good points. Would take a look at those and have a think about your project, then get back to us.

Wouldn't be too worried about saving $900 on a project that'd likely cost at least 6 figures. I don't think you understand the complexity.

Wont cost 6 figures unless you start hiring people to do work for you. Materials never cost THAT much, its paying to have stuff done for you is where BIG money comes in. Myself and a buddy are fine tweaking a CNC machine so we can cut the parts we need and design the custom parts around commercially avalible fitting from swagelok and edmond optics. The glass tube, which I may not even need anymore was like $400 to get the flanges melted on.

I plan on building this from SCRATCH. It wont be cheap but it will be FAR from 6 figures. I very much understand the complexity, I have like 12 custom part files and an assembly in solid works, compressors, tooling, etc. This has been my lifes work since I was a kid off and on, it could very well take me another decade or I may even die before I finish it. BUT I would like to not screw up things like I think I just did and loose massive amounts of time and possibly wasted materials.

So lets do it, assume cost is no object. How would YOU build a laser to shoot down large size drones.
 
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