Laserglow 589nm Rigel HV Pro-50 Review

[DJNY]

Thanks!

Over the time I would say the unit I had was a bit more stable BUT

yours has a 5-7mW higher average output and also a higher peak!





Again, congrats on this highest powered PGL-III-A-589nm around :beer:

 

[ElectroMagneticFreak]

Your laser is absolutely gorgeous!

If you don't mind, I was wondering why it is harder to produce higher power 589nm, 593.5nm, 473 etc when 532nm is also DPSS and can be up to 500mW or higher. Is it because of the increased number of steps it takes to produce the final output wavelength that some power is lost as a result?

 

[Smeerworst]

Your laser is absolutely gorgeous!

If you don't mind, I was wondering why it is harder to produce higher power 589nm, 593.5nm, 473 etc when 532nm is also DPSS and can be up to 500mW or higher. Is it because of the increased number of steps it takes to produce the final output wavelength that some power is lost as a result?

Taken from page 2

Yellow diode lasers are so much more expensive then for example red ones.
Lots of itty bitty parts, and they all need to be very carefully aligned by hand. If the polarisation is off , one or both crystals need to be turned.
With red diode lasers, you just slap in the diode and slap a lens in front of it.

BIG infrared laser diode that generates laser light at 808nm, this is fired into a crystal containing the rare-earth element neodymium.
This crystal takes the 808nm infrared laser light and lases at 1,064 and 1,342nm (yes, deeper in the infrared!). This laser light comes out of the NdYV04 (neodymium yttrium vanadium oxide) crystal and is then shot into a second crystal (containing potassium, titanium, & phosphorus, usually called KTP) that roughly doubles the frequency.

Or something like that

That's why they cost so much.

Cheers sm.

Maybe someone can explain it better for him ?

Cheers.

 

[DJNY]

Taken from page 2

Maybe someone can explain it better for him ?

Cheers.

Your explanation is good! I also like Trevor´s one here from the thread

http://laserpointerforums.com/f40/how-do-yellow-lasers-work-63900.html#post914510

Yellow lasers work just like our favorite green lasers.

With green, two 1064nm photons are collided to yield a single new photon of twice the energy and half the wavelength.

With yellow (593.5), two wavelengths must be lasing from the neodymium doped crystal - 1064nm and 1342nm. Two of these photons are collided to yield a photon of the summed energy and a shorter wavelength.

With 589nm, the combined wavelengths are 1064nm and 1319nm if my memory serves.

Yellow HeNe's at 594.1nm are expensive because they're rare and are gas lasers.

577nm OPSL lasers are still new technology and will be quite expensive.

-Trevor

 

[Deleted member 17304]

I'll throw in my $.02 as well

There's a few types of yellow lasers. As stated, there are DPSS, OPSL and gas yellows. (HeNe and Krypton have yellow lines, sodium vapor lasers also make yellow, same for some mixed gas lasers)

With our "common" yellows, it uses SFG to make these colors. SFG stands for Sum Frequency Generation. This is pretty much the process of combining two wavelengths and generating a new wavelength from these. The formula for this is 1/((1/WL1)+(1/WL2)).(commonly used, there may be more accurate but on our hobby level we don't need anything really more than 1nm off, and this formula shoule be less than .01nm off).

For 593.5nm lasers, you can take either Nd:YAG or Nd:YVO4 (used more commonly in yellows) crystals and generate 1064nm and 1342nm. Using the formula above, WL3 = 1/((1/1064)+(1/1342)). Plug that into your calculator, and it will yield 593.47. 593.47 is VERY close to 593.5, plus take into account it's not exactly 1064nm on the mark. it's just close enough for rounding to do it's job.

589nm works very similarly, except Nd:YVO4 is the only option to generate the needed wavelengths: 1064nm and 1319nm. Plug these into the formula, and you should yield 588.93nm. Nd:YAG cannot generate 1319nm, while it can generate 1342nm.

Gas lasers: as stated a rare yellow HeNe can make 594.1nm. Adding to this, to my knowledge Krypton lasers have a 568nm line (if you think wicked lasers krypton do more research please.) Sodium lasers (used in astronomy) emit a wavelength a bit higher than 589nm (I think 589.13).

Recently OPSL lasers started showing up, I know very little myself about these so I'm going to stick with their word on these.

However, it has been noted that yellow semiconductor lasers are physically possible to make. However, there are no practical uses for these in low powers, and sad to say DPSS yellows are more efficient.

In astronomy, sodium lasers are becoming less and less "efficient" for the needs of the scientists. So, solution is making a new DPSS system for them. It's possible to make a DDD (direct diode doubling) laser that emits 589nm using IR VCSEL diodes (perfectly round spot emitting diodes basically). Doing some research, they managed to make 589nm up to 4 watts 17% more efficient than sodium lasers. Well, whatever that means.

Hope this wall of text explains a bit more.

 

[Sigurthr]

Aye, I'm really hoping the future needs of astonomy bring either affordable (small) Na vapor or direct-doubled diode lasers into our hands. Heck, direct yellow would be a dream come true, but it's just a dream. Semiconductor manufacturers need you to move a mountain before they'll build something for you that they don't already build, even if they CAN do it. Look at Nichia and their 473's 488's and 375's.

I wonder if it is possible to make your own Na vapor laser from a LPS lamp if you have glassworking skills...

 

[Deleted member 17304]

If astronomy brings anything to us at all its probably going to be their "junk" sodium lasers. I don't really expect it to push the DDD yellows or even semiconductor yellows into our hands, but hey its still a possibility. You never know what hobbyist astronomers may eventually need them for--