New SUPERBRIGHT Direct Diode Laser

[robertkoa]

How bright is it ?
Bright enough to cut through 1/2 Inch of steel.
And it will even pop light colored balloons, I assume.��
The first direct-diode laser bright enough to cut and weld metal

It is 4 kilowatts ..so make sure you get really good goggles when this comes out in a handheld unit .

You may be able to run it off your Tesla at lower power...

Color should be almost white due to multiple wavelengths.

I think I am still going with 5 to 8 milliwatts but good to know options.

Actually SETI should probably beam some signals out into Space with this thing ...to get return calls in 20 to 400,000 years maybe .

 

[Pikablu]

coool

 

[Rivem]

Kinda cheating though. It's really a whole bunch of diodes combined into one beam. If it was a single emitter, that'd really be impressive.

 

[RedCowboy]

Agreed Rivem.

 

[Pman]

That was a pretty interesting article and made total sense. Wish they had gone into the diodes that are being used.

 

[Rivem]

That was a pretty interesting article and made total sense. Wish they had gone into the diodes that are being used.

Pretty sure it's got to just be a bunch of IR bar arrays. Sounds like the real tech was in combining such a powerful beam when a DPSS medium is more commonly used.

 

[robertkoa]

Kinda cheating though. It's really a whole bunch of diodes combined into one beam. If it was a single emitter, that'd really be impressive.

True. It would be pretty amazing to see [ maybe a Video or with some EEALLY good Goggles] 4 kilowatts of one Wavelength...

Too bad they don't have beamshots...

 

[Light superglue]

Can someone of optics specialists explain to a chemist how diffraction grating can be used to combine beams? If easy, I would like to try this on my optical stand.

Or is this just useful for close spot focusing and not for long range collimated beams?

The communication dates 2014, so there should be info around even if the full design was patented by MIT, I suppose?

 

[RedCowboy]

Fiber lasers, the kind with bragg gratings at the ends can be pumped to produce multi kilowatts with exceptional beam quality, actually even bragg gratings are being phased out.

Here is a short intro into fiber lasers: They are becoming the new industrial standard and are the heart of HELLADS.

 

[Light superglue]

Thank you, Red

So not of use for me to try at home.