- Joined
- Jun 13, 2007
- Messages
- 5,410
- Points
- 113
In the lab I work in I have access to oodles of liquid nitrogen...we use it to help keep the liquid helium in our NMR magnets cool. So of course, the idea of cooling the piss out of laser diodes to induce a massive blue shift came up and now I want to try it.
So I took a look at the datasheets for some of our more common hobby laser diodes to see what kind of wavelength shift I can expect. Unfortunately, the green and blue laser diodes don't shift that much with temperature. What did catch my attention is that the 635nm laser diodes do have quite a wavelength/temperature slope...about 0.2nm/K near room temperature. Assuming this trend is linear, a 635nm laser diode cooled to liquid nitrogen temperatures could be blue shifted to ~595nm.
So that makes me wonder...has anybody here played around with liquid nitrogen cooled laser diodes and had any success? If so, any tips? I can see condensation being a major issue...so I am thinking about building a thermally conductive cell to contain the laser diode, and throw some desiccant in there to suck up as much water as possible before cooling.
Any input would be greatly appreciated! If I have any success with the experiment I'll be sure to post spectral/power data and a video. :beer:
So I took a look at the datasheets for some of our more common hobby laser diodes to see what kind of wavelength shift I can expect. Unfortunately, the green and blue laser diodes don't shift that much with temperature. What did catch my attention is that the 635nm laser diodes do have quite a wavelength/temperature slope...about 0.2nm/K near room temperature. Assuming this trend is linear, a 635nm laser diode cooled to liquid nitrogen temperatures could be blue shifted to ~595nm.
So that makes me wonder...has anybody here played around with liquid nitrogen cooled laser diodes and had any success? If so, any tips? I can see condensation being a major issue...so I am thinking about building a thermally conductive cell to contain the laser diode, and throw some desiccant in there to suck up as much water as possible before cooling.
Any input would be greatly appreciated! If I have any success with the experiment I'll be sure to post spectral/power data and a video. :beer:
Last edited: