BiBO crystals the new rage!!

[brtaman]

a new type of non-linear crystal...the bibo (BiB3O6I)...is set to make blue lasers much cheaper for us laser enthusiasts:

check out this article: http://www.photonics.com/content/spectra/2003/May/research/77431.aspx

the scientists in Hamburg, Germany managed o produce a 2.8W !!!!!!! 473nm laser...this was using the bibo crystal and a 21 W 808nm IR diode...

It would seem that these new crystals will soon be the rage in blue laser production with their apparent efficiency of ~13 percent...wooooot basically a 1w IR would equal 130ma of blue cant wait till laser producers catch on...

Although these crystals are surely expensive we will slowly begin to see extremelly powerful hand-held blues....YAY

Please share your opinion on these new Bismuth Borate crystals...

Later,
brtaman

 

[pseudonomen137]

Haha, not quite. Cool article, but thats from May 2003 - they've already been around for a while. High power blues are staying expensive for now

 

[brtaman]

Oh

didnt even check the date I was too excited checking out the specs...but while they may stay expensive, we should start seeing some high powered ones on the market if bibo's start getting used?



brtaman

 

[keeperx]

and MAYBE some price drops..
There is no real use for blue is there.. i mean commercialy? other than asthetic uses??

 

[pseudonomen137]

Well, there already are high power 473nm modules - just very expensive. CNI will sell you a 1W right now if you got the 5 figure fee. Blue just isn't very practical for portable lasers so you don't see all that much from them.

 

[brtaman]

Yeah that is true pseudomonium, however optotonics uses 2.5w IR diode in their high power greens IIRC

going by the info provided in the article that should give a potential output of 325mw, and that would make an enormously high powered blue...

However I believe that the problem is BiBO crystal prices, the CNI 1w probably (very) uses the BiBo crystal IMO.

I wonder how long it is going to take for BiBOs to start being used in handheld applications, and herald a new era of blue power???


brtaman

 

[pseudonomen137]

These are gunna be the highest quality crystals being run in the most ideal conditions with the most efficient cavity designs - VERY different from portable lasers. If there was a true advantage to be gained from using that in the portable blues, it would have already been done. There are several types of crystals that can be used to freq double 946nm for 473nm DPSS, and you can bet they do their best to use the one that is most cost effective - efficiency is part of judging cost effectiveness.

Under ideal conditions, you can get far more efficiency out of 2.5W 808nm than you do in an RPL blue too using a similar crystal composition. Just because you can quote one efficiency from one paper in one instance - doesn't mean its at all practical to apply it to a portable laser unfortunately (or even a retail module for that matter). What if the crystal needs very specific temp requirements to even get any reasonable efficiency at all? Well, that would probably rule out its use in a portable altogether :-/

 

[brtaman]

Actually it would seem that these new crystals are superior to LBO's, BBO's and other crystals usually found in consumer lasers...

"BiBO is a newly developed nonlinear optical crystal. It possesses large effective nonlinear coefficients (3.5 - 4 times higher than that of LBO, 1.5 - 2 times higher than that of BBO ), high damage threshold and inertness with respect to moisture. It has been identified to be an efficient NLO crystal, especially for producing blue light through second harmonic generation of CW Nd lasers or ultrafast TiS lasers."

They have a couple of pretty good links!

http://www.newlightphotonics.com/BIBO.html#

Here is the site...while I agree that in a lab environment the crystals can be used much more efficiently, I am sure that atleast 50 mw could be had with a 2.5 W IR...but again this is just my optimistic side speaking up...the pesimistic one is telling me that these crystaly go for +1000$ a pop...

this specs page looks even more promising :O
http://www.newlightphotonics.com/bibo-properties.html

Check it out..woot


Thanks
brtaman