Need a cheap, high stability laser

[zmogedra]

Have you had any experience with cheap china laser, are they stable? It doesn't matter for me if the output is very low all I need is stable intensity, coherent light source. Any suggestions are welcome. P.S. I would prefer red or green.

 

[joshshermannn1]

in my experience, no its not stable. you could buy a laser and turn the pot down, then it might become more stable.
i suggest Laserglow Technologies - Handheld Lasers, Alignment Lasers and Lab / OEM Lasers Green laser, Blue laser, Infra Red laser, IR laser, UV DPSS laser.

 

[zmogedra]

Hmm your idea with lowering the voltage might just work. Because I really don't need allot of power for testing photodiodes.

 

[joshshermannn1]

laserglow sells a 5mw for 40 and i heard its pretty stable. tell me how turning the pot works! dont do it blindly though.

 

[Cyparagon]

Pointers aren't stable. Get a gas laser or light-regulated diode laser. Argon lasers and HeNe lasers are as stable as...

a noble gas.

 

[zmogedra]

I need it darn cheap so gas laser and all the other cool stuff like Nd:YAG, Ti:Al2O3 are out of the question.
I'm not going to do it blindly:] and yeah I will tell you how it went. Maybe if I will not be lazy I will even get a profile of the beam and measure the stability with ophire.

 

[DrSid]

In such case at least get diode laser (like red) and not DPSS (like green). Still it will fluctuate with temperature ..

 

[zmogedra]

Yeah I know, coz cheap second harmonic pointer will have lot's of first harmonic left.