I managed to find a store on ebay from Australia that deals with crystal sets. I was hesitant at first to buy the higher end set. But then after chatting with the tech for some days I decided I would go for a cheaper package he had available. He told me he had obtained 600-700mW using a 3W pump C-mount in one of the sets like I received. The photos and items looked like they were selling quality "unique" laser items, I guess you could say.
So I bought the lens/crystal/heatsink assembly from this company. This consisted of a brass cylinder of, I believe around 20mm diameter (I can go grab it from the shop for details), a threaded rear brass cap, pre-glued crystal set, 2 diode-to-crystal collimating lenses, 1 IR filter, 1 final collimating lens pre-glued.
The only trick, I guess, is that the user aligns the diode.
My Big Mistake
This unit came with a 5.6mm diode flush/press mount. I was not pleased with that for a pump size. How could I be? The unit heat sinking was so extensional for a typical mount it begged for more than a 5.6... So I drilled out the diode hole with a mill. Accept, I screwed up the mount. Minor? Ehhh, majorly, you could say. I improperly used a drill bit size which was a number value off in the set, and I probably have 0.05mm of play all the way around the diode. No press-fit here. (Remember how they say, "you can always drill a hole bigger, but you can't drill it smaller"? Take my advice, always step in drill sizes carefully when you are trying to get the size right.
) So I may have to use a ring for a 9mm diode to larger hole adapter, and then bore the heat sink out again to accept the adapter ring + diode, to fix the problem--if I want to properly.
I used a 1W 9mm 808nm pump diode. I was watching TEM00 change to other values as I wiggled the unit and diode around, which was very neat to me as I experienced the modes of the electron states changing on the wall. Then, I would hold the unit (and diode wires) while doing this goofy experiment, to try to literally hold the diode into the brightest TEM00 I could see on the wall without the collimating lens on. At very first there was nothing. No lasing was occurring. Ten seconds in I moved the unit and saw the first burst of light. Long story short, I thermal epoxied the diode in TEM00 while eyeballing it and let it set overnight. I obtained 98mW of green 532nm light on a Laserbee meter. I was impressed this very very sloppy setup actually produced near 100mW of green.
This thread reminded me of the module. I want to go dig it out now and look at it hah.
