Fuzzy beam on 6x?

[Spyderz20x6]

I have no idea, is it possible that it may be a plastic lens?  I have never taken one apart, I would assume glass but is is really? :-/

Of course it's glass :-?

 

[JLSE]

I have heard the same thing, but just that... heard it. I have never seen this in any reading. The only hesitation I would have for using a dremel is the dust landing on the die.

I would recomend the thorlab can opener, and even then if your not careful, shavings will get all over inside the 'can' and die before it separates.

The facet window is glass for sure, its way too brittle to be plastic. As for exposure to oxygen, I think this applies to most lasing mediums, but is not an immedite threat. Ive seen NdYvo4 sold in gel for that reason.

IgorT also mentioned the inert gas thing to me a while back, but he wasnt 100% It came up in conversation when I was on a de-canning frenzy with my new tool at the time :

 

[Spyderz20x6]

As amateur as it sounds... I have had good results with windex and super clean q-tips. The trick is to not touch the glass with the same point  of the q-tip twice. Put a small amount of the cleaner on the q-tip, rub it with one stroke lift , rotate the q-tip to another fresh spot and repeat. Then do the same with the dry side, avoid more than a single stroke with the same section of cotton.

When you are done view the diode under good lighting on an angle and look for any spots, streaks and cotton fibers.

Do not touch the ends of the fresh q-tip or you will be adding the oils from your skin into the equation.

I got thermal paste on one of mine and went through 4-5 q-tips getting it completely off

It worked like a charm
No more fuzzy beam, and it's back up to 185-190mW

Thanks a ton!

 

[jayrob]

Phew!

Nice thing to know WannaBurn!

Sounds like you can wipe those beads of sweat off your forehead now Sypder...
Jay

 

[JLSE]

Glad to hear it Id hate to see a perfectly good 6x go to waste :-/

I had a glob of silver thermal paste smear across one of mine, and anyone who has used the silver stuff knows that its so fine, that its next to impossible to even get it out of your skin with strong soap.

I tried so many different ways to remove crap off of various optics, it makes my head spin to re-live those individual nightmares.

Other solvents would probably also work, but the key to this one is to not use the same area of cotton twice.

I think it was Dave who had mentioned that a percentage of dust contains quartz, and dragging it around will only make things worse. Same rule also applies to any contaminate on optics. If you wipe off some crap, it makes no sense to rub it right back on, when the cost of the diode far out weighs the cost of a few q-tips

 

[Spyderz20x6]

Glad to hear it Id hate to see a perfectly good 6x go to waste :-/  

I had a glob of silver thermal paste smear across one of mine, and anyone who has used the silver stuff knows that its so fine, that its next to impossible to even get it out of your skin with strong soap.

I tried so many different ways to remove crap off of various optics, it makes my head spin to re-live those individual nightmares.

Other solvents would probably also work, but the key to this one is to not use the same area of cotton twice.

I think it was Dave who had mentioned that a percentage of dust contains quartz, and dragging it around will only make things worse. Same rule also applies to any contaminate on optics. If you wipe off some crap, it makes no sense to rub it right back on, when the cost of the diode far out weighs the cost of a few q-tips

I used a new Q-Tip everytime i swiped the window, and it worked charms
I would give you +2 rep of I could...

Phew!

Nice thing to know WannaBurn!

Sounds like you can wipe those beads of sweat off you forehead now Sypder...
Jay

Already did
I would hate to have to buy another 6x and scrap this one :-/

 

[pullbangdead]

As far as the exposure to the oxidizing environment (as opposed to the inert gases in a closed can), it's questionable to me. I certainly have trouble accepting that gallium nitride will degrade from oxygen exposure. Gallium nitride is extremely hardy stuff: very hard to etch, very resistant to chemicals in general.

Speaking to a project scientist in my group that works basically exclusively with gallium nitride laser diodes, according to him there is some discussion in general still going on about if air can do anything to a diode. His best explanation is that there may be an effect on facet coatings if they use them on the laser diodes (which is fairly likely, to get the reflectivity up on the end facets, making facets on gallium nitride is NOT trivial in any way), and that the facet coatings may degrade from oxidation. Degrade the facets, lower the reflectivity of the facets, and you can lose stimulated emission.

But I have my doubts about if gallium nitride itself is going to degrade in any serious way in a just a number of hours. Generally, none of our test samples get stored in inert atmospheres, and they can sit for weeks between growth, processing, testing, etc. Gallium nitride really is some very hardy stuff.

His advice, not worth it unless absolutely necessary, or if your window is already dislodged, etc. So yeah, air could still harm a diode, but I don't think it would be because of the gallium nitride itself degrading. So yeah, I agree there could be problems with degradation, I just think I may disagree on the reason for that degradation.

Also, I haven't seen where anyone has really done any research on how the atmosphere can affect a diode. I would posit that the can might just be there as a "why not? just in case" feature of the package. The die itself is BY FAR the most expensive part of the whole package, so putting it inside a can is VERY cheap relative to the price of the whole process. It costs them so little to put the die in the can, so what do they lose by putting the can on there "just in case"? Next to nothing in cost, just to guarantee that there'll be no problem, even if there might not be a problem without the can.