New To Lasers (Can't Wait To Make A DEW)

[JustMichael_1138]

So, I'm new to lasers. I get the idea behind them, and understand the most basic of concepts, but the technicalities and components are, so far, above my head. However, I've watched more than a few StyroPyro videos (especially his laser cannon ones before YouTube got paranoid) and can't believe they sell half the shtako they do on eBay (blue laser diode arrays, anyone...?).

Figured I'd might as well join a forum and get some practical information before attempting to create my own, duplicating StyroPyro's 700 watt laser microwave oven (that used a liquid-cooled array of 9 blue laser diode arrays). Yes, I'm aware the microwaves have the highest kill count of any home appliance because noobs are like, Watch this! and then touch the transformer, and are transformed into a pair of smoking shoes. I'm not a complete idiot when it comes to electricity, and won't be touching any transformers anytime soon.

My first thought upon watching that video, naturally, was, "How do I weaponize it?" I'm not sure how much advice once can legally receive, but from what I've seen, the only illegalities is in interfering with other devices with EM or aiming them at planes/trains/automobiles. But firearms are passé and I want my plasma rifle in the 1,000 watt range...for home defense...

Now, before anyone panics, I don't actually have any lasers yet. My only other experience with them is using them for laser engraving on a Trotec, but those are near IR red lasers.

Couple of questions I will be pursuing here:

1. Why didn't StyroPyro focus all 9 beams into one using lenses, prior to using a diffuser plate to cook food more thoroughly (aside from the fact that near IR would have offered better penetration)? How much intensity increase would there be from using a focusing lens to put all nine beams into one?
2. While 700 watts really cooks, it's not exactly devestating. Yeah, you'll set someone's clothes on fire if you blast them and hold it there for a few seconds. What is the difference between a burning laser like that, and one designed specifically for weaponization? I'm guessing it has something to do with the pulsing? Still hazy on this.
3. How can I make a homemade particle beam?

I'm not even sure talking about DEWs is allowed, and if not, I apologize. I read the rules and nothing seemed against it specifically. I figure, home defense ought to cover my needs--I'm not trying to walk around with a huge capacitor bank back pack and a 50 pound "rifle."

Looking forward to learning as much as I can before I start ripping open inverter microwaves.

 

[RedCowboy]

1. Why didn't StyroPyro focus all 9 beams into one using lenses, prior to using a diffuser plate to cook food more thoroughly (aside from the fact that near IR would have offered better penetration)? How much intensity increase would there be from using a focusing lens to put all nine beams into one?
2. While 700 watts really cooks, it's not exactly devestating. Yeah, you'll set someone's clothes on fire if you blast them and hold it there for a few seconds. What is the difference between a burning laser like that, and one designed specifically for weaponization? I'm guessing it has something to do with the pulsing? Still hazy on this.
3. How can I make a homemade particle beam?

( 1 ) Nine laser arrays each with 14 multi mode beams each having uneven divergence with one very aggressive axis....... you could use a big lens to get them all into one cluster-spot for up close use, but at any kind of distance.... You would need to correct each beam and knife edge them all after that and given the parameters of the arrays...... it's beyond impractical.

( 2 ) 700W could cut your head off if it was in a tightly focused diffraction limited Gaussian beam, but that's not what Styro's arrays are made of.

( 3 ) You do NOT want to use any laser for home defense unless it's a <5mw aiming laser attached to a firearm. Hell prosecutors will make a case against you if you defend yourself with a firearm and the bullets you bought had some kind of shock value advertising or an aggressive name like ( Viscous Devastators ) " Mow through your attackers like a lawnmower through a patch of baby bunnies. " The prosecutor will read the label on the box of bullets in court and attempt to make those words yours. Now if you build some kind of DEW and end up only blinding a home invader..... you're going to be paying for the rest of your life.

 

[JustMichael_1138]

( 1 ) Nine laser arrays each with 14 multi mode beams each having uneven divergence with one very aggressive axis....... you could use a big lens to get them all into one cluster-spot for up close use, but at any kind of distance.... You would need to correct each beam and knife edge them all after that and given the parameters of the arrays...... it's beyond impractical.

( 2 ) 700W could cut your head off if it was in a tightly focused divergence limited Gaussian beam, but that's not what Styro's arrays are made of.

( 3 ) You do NOT want to use any laser for home defense unless it's a >5mw aiming laser attached to a firearm. Hell prosecutors will make a case against you if you defend yourself with a firearm and the bullets you bought had some kind of shock value advertising or an aggressive name like ( Viscous Devastators ) " Mow through your attackers like a lawnmower through a patch of baby bunnies. " The prosecutor will read the label on the box of bullets in court and attempt to make those words yours. Now if you build some kind of DEW and end up only blinding a home invader..... you're going to be paying for the rest of your life.

(1) I thought they made lenses specifically for putting multiple beams into one beam configuration...? No idea what the terms would be, and apologize ahead of time for my inelegance in description. What about modifying the aluminum heat sink with precisely machined fractional angles for each diode array to every so slightly angle them into a converging point? The substrate would be ever so slightly concave, in a geodesic sort of fashion.

Also, what about channeling them into a geodesic lens to use as a "dazzler" that would instantly blind everyone on the battlefield who wasn't wearing protective goggles?

(2) How does one go about achieving this "divergence limited Gaussian beam?"

(3) The type of weapon I'm talking about (and that we clearly have the tech coming from via ebay and other sketchy sources with scratched out numbers and manufacturer denials) would instantly set the person on fire. Most likely something pulsed with a super-high frequency. The days of Popular Science magazines featuring huge "DEW" weapon rigs on trucks are long gone thanks to miniaturization and conquering the blue diode, so I'm pretty sure I can rig something up that looks and functions like that old ass B movie, Deadly Weapon.

Also on that same tangent, didn't Tesla do work on highly pusled discharges being explosive? I thought I read something about pulsed DC current with extremely high frequency pulsing so maybe ionizing a plasma discharge path to the target is in the cards? /s lol

 

[RedCowboy]

(1) It's not that easy, those arrays of blue beams turn into a blue spotlight pretty quickly, Styro is only showing you up close.

(2) Well you're not going to make it out of those blue arrays.

(3) The reason for the scratched out numbers is because OEM projector makers buy from laser producers for use in their line of equipment, but it's against their agreement with the laser producers to resell the lasers alone because the laser makers don't want the bad publicity and/or lawsuits from people like yourself doing something stupid, so any small company looking for a few extra bucks or anyone swiping them from the assembly line, will remove the identifying numbers that lead back to them.

What is it that you want to do with a laser weapon ?

How far are you trying to reach ? Have you read about thermal blooming ?

Was your Trotec a CO2 or fiber ?

Something interesting is the adaptive optics and phase shift compensation used to overcome atmospheric distortions and yes, very high energy short pulse fiber lasers are the way of the future, but there's more in the works as well, very interesting stuff.

What do you know about Bragg gratings ?

 

[JustMichael_1138]

To build a prototype to patent it and be the first to create a mass-production home defense weapon that reflects our bleeding-edge technology, made for the public sector.

It's not like there's any laws against posessing lasers of mass destruction, and Raytheon is way ahead of the curve.

Also, can you order blue diode arrays directly from manufacturers in specific frequencies? Most of this stuff can pretty much be built with everything you can buy on eBay, and I figure, the government shouldn't be the ONLY ones to get all the fun toys. I want to vaporize pumpkins with pulsed lasers that make them detonate from near-instant exothermic reactions boiling off their moisture in an explosion of vegetable gore. lmao Or are we getting into "maser" territory with those aspirations?

Lastly (sorry for the questions), wouldn't pumping all the beams into a single beam through a lens overcome the atmospheric diffusion by magnifying the...what did he call it? "Energy density?" Wouldn't that therefore increase the range?

 

[RedCowboy]

If you built and patented a laser weapon for the masses we would no doubt see legislation right away, but that's nothing new, 2A is under attack constantly and 2A is the right to bear arms, all arms as civilians could buy the same warships as government when our Constitution was written, people owned the same arms the military had, however we have allowed the tyrant control mongers to infringe quite a lot already, GCA, NFA, Brady, RedFlags, ect... That said do you really want your neighbor owning a nuke ? No of course not, so we can't have a freaking firearm over .50 ( muzzle loading exempt ) or a machine gun not already in civilian hands before 1986 ( Hughes amendment ) so I have no doubt laser weapons will be attacked legislatively straight away, but I do believe we have the right to own them and you can bet they will be used against us. Maybe we will get to pay a fee ( tax stamp ) and sign away our rights for a permission to own card ( for a limited output class ) ?

There's probably a law against everything, case law and if there's a nefarious intent then anything can be illegal. You're probably an agent trying to get me to say something wrong right now....... Truth is I enjoy learning and knowledge isn't illegal, but they want it to be.

But I digress, laser weapons will be attacked for being silent and for diffuse light hazards be they visible or near IR, so proper laser weapons will need to be " eye safe " >1400nm ( 1.4um ) likely an evolved 1550nm, After all you don't want onlookers at an outdoor shooting range or near a self defense use going blind from diffuse reflections.

You can buy a multi kW fiber laser source right now and focus it through a beam expander for longer range, but they are 1064-1080nm and a diffuse reflection blinding hazard and the smallest setup would require a backpack and wand arrangement, so a pulsed fiber laser, I expect a MOPA 1550nm or more could be the way to go, but they are not as powerful yet, now we also have to ask just how portable can it be and how to power it ? Ultra caps to be reloaded like spent ammo ? This is another good reason for high energy short pulse systems as they will be more efficient than CW.

Maybe the technology for super compact ( rifle/pistol ) size weapons is right around the corner, but the battery technology will need to advance as well, it's just as big of an issue.

A photonic-crystal surface-emitting laser built bright enough for industrial-scale cutting

A team of photonics and electronic engineers at Kyoto University has found a way to overcome the shortcomings of photonic-crystal surface-emitting lasers (PCSELs) that have prevented their use in industrial-scale cutting applications. In their study reported in the journal Nature, the group made...

phys.org

Forget the blue arrays, that's not the way to go.

No, read back.

 

[JustMichael_1138]

An agent? lmao No, not I. I agree with pretty much everything you said. I'm an air rifle fan, myself, simply because it keeps the government out of my business. Especially the big calibers like the Umarex Hammer .514 and the AEA Terminator.

What about pushing the beam frequency way past visible light and into the ultraviolet or down into the microwave range? Would that be more effective at obliterating the target since you wouldn't have to worry about light absorbtion as much? Pretty sure I read somewhere that Raytheon makes microwave diodes all the way up into the GHz range, but won't sell them to the public.

Really appreciate your responses and taking my questions with humor. This is really enlightening and entertaining, and I thank you!

 

[WizardG]

Look up gyrotron on the google machine. Military is doing some... interesting things. A beam of radio energy in the 10s of GHz, packing a megawatt of power, does bad things to.....just about anything it hits.

 

[RedCowboy]

An agent? lmao No, not I. I agree with pretty much everything you said. I'm an air rifle fan, myself, simply because it keeps the government out of my business. Especially the big calibers like the Umarex Hammer .514 and the AEA Terminator.

What about pushing the beam frequency way past visible light and into the ultraviolet or down into the microwave range? Would that be more effective at obliterating the target since you wouldn't have to worry about light absorbtion as much? Pretty sure I read somewhere that Raytheon makes microwave diodes all the way up into the GHz range, but won't sell them to the public.

Really appreciate your responses and taking my questions with humor. This is really enlightening and entertaining, and I thank you!

PCP's are cool and they have come a long way, I have thought about making a butane powered gun like the way cordless nail guns work... although they would likely be considered a firearm, still legal to build but can't be automatic like air powered ( projectile propelled by explosion ) as per the wording of NFA/GCA

Masers can be very powerful, but you are after something compact/man portable.

Diodes are great but remember it's all about beam quality, pretty much any single laser diode over 1W is going to be a multi mode.
Now you can pump a crystal with with multi mode stacks but there's a lot of waste heat which also requires active cooling. Pumping fiber is the better way and more efficient.

Sure UV, x-ray lasers are more destructive as they have a higher EV and frequency but you won't get it in high power and compact, not yet.

 

[RedCowboy]

It's interesting what wavelengths are absorbed by the human body, seems CO2 lasers @ 10600nm are preferred for cutting soft tissue surgically.
The thing I can't see ( no pun intended ) is a blinding laser being acceptable as a defensive weapon in America, it's even a war crime IINM to intentionally maim this way..... That said it's an unavoidable topic in the laser weapons of the future discussion, with that said I again must strongly recommend against the use of dazzlers and/or blinding lasers not only for humanitarian reasons, but because of legal ramifications ( You will get into big trouble so don't do it. ).
Should Americans be able to own/use virtually any weapon to defend their home, YES, but those who wrongly kill or maim must be held accountable.

Here's a couple things of interest I found.

Laser Surgery Basics - American Laser Study Club

Find out how laser wavelengths impact photo-thermal coagulation and ablation efficiencies in laser surgery.

www.americanlaserstudyclub.org

Laser Pistols: Emerging weapon and tactics - SPACE & DEFENSE

spaceanddefense.io

This video has been posted before but check out that brick penetration at 7:30 and the dia. of the beam, wow.

 

[JustMichael_1138]

Please forgive my lack of maths, which would likely answer many of my questions. How hard is to make a maser compact? Why is this so? Also, how far are we to being able to produce UV diodes? I know blue was a huge technological leap. I am guessing that producing beams of more exotic frequencies (like UV or microwave) is more complicated and thus, requires larger equipment that we haven't been able to effectively miniaturize, yet?

As for diode beams, I can remember sitting in shop class in the 90s learning about how the red LEDs would overheat if you ran them without a resistor and pop. Is there a way to improve the beam quality produced by diodes? I mean, it looks like the blue laser diode arrays have lenses built into them, so I'm assuming they're built using more exotic elements in housings that are designed for rapid heat dissipation and/or better emittance quality. I saw Styro's trick with the indium foil for better contact with the heat sinks.

Which brings me to yet another question (and please forgive the quantity of them!): is there actually a way to produce a beam (even if the diameter of the beam was the size of a hair) that will actually provide an ionization path for an arc discharge? I know it takes a hella lot of wattage per square (insert unit of measurment) to ionize the air, but I thought Japanese scientists had mastered this with their ability to project holograms by ionizing the air with lasers a while back? I seem to recall something about Sony working on this...

I mean, we only need an effective range of 50 yards or so, but is that achievable in a beam?

Also, yeah, "war crimes." Apparently, we're supposed to value the lives of invaders more than they value their own lives. I guess this begs the question, is there a way to make the beam non-lethal for a spinning geodesic emitter to make a proper "dazzler" that only stuns, not blinds? That should be relative child's play since we know all the ways to induce seizures or other psychological effects using EM fields--isn't there a way to confine those same frequencies into a beam? Amazing1 used to sell pain "phaser" guns that would induce nausea, but that website seems to have gone under, as did their parent company, Information Unlimited...(probably nothing to do with the fact that they sold plans for 300 kJ exploding wire EMP cannons...)

Also, the NFA/GCA can take a flying leap. What part of "Shall not be infringed" do they not understand? That's not a conditional verb, it's an imperative command. I thought "firearm" was defined as anything that uses combustion in a cartridge as its primary means of propulsion, and that's why black powder rifles weren't considered firearms? So long as we don't use capacitor cartridges...lol We're Americans--we celebrate the birth of our nation every year by finding new and creative ways to blow up tiny pieces of it on the Fourth of July! lmao So a building a bigger Death Ray™ is just part of our manifest destiny.

Any way to get diodes bigger than 1w that are not multi-mode? Do they even make them (for private ownership as opposed to only for government agencies)? I mean, if someone has the money, what's stopping them from simply ordering directly from Raytheon? Aside from the fact that they'll laugh at you and likely post your email in the employee lounge for yuks. I get the days of RadioShack are gone, but it's not like we're trying to build a privately-owned hobby nuclear reactor using amounts of uranium smaller than the size of the periods at the end of this sentence...

I agree--there's no permissivity of those who just kill or maim for sport and cruelty. Not looking to make something that tortures someone, just instant lethality or strong but non-permanent deterrence in a nifty Buck Rogers package. And dude, that laser in the video is hilarious. There is a 100% chance I would be misusing that laser (but with proper eye wear). Watch me flash fry this egg! Wasp nest? No problem! In fact, why are we not using an infrared targeting laser on a rig with a lethal (for bugs) blue diode beam for a futuristic laser version of a CIWS bug zapper? GMO mosquitoes? Puh-leeze--let's blast the little SOBs right out of the air using lasers! lol I just saw Styro's video where he got ahold of the Chinese tatoo removal laser. lmao While the $5,000 price tag is a bit steep, that's still not bad for laser chain saw (and cement cleaner/brush burner/cigarette lighter/fire starter)...

 

[RedCowboy]

(1) I haven't done anything with masers yet, anything can be developed for enough money, much is driven by industry need, UV laser diodes exist and you can buy them.

(2) I could talk for a long time about laser diode construction so I will make this short for now, substrate stack built around a P/N junction with reflective front and back facets is the gain medium where electrons are driven into a higher orbit....... you can improve the divergence with c-lenses, but starting with a high quality and a long coherence length beam is better, longer cavity's are conducive to better coherence length such as gas lasers and fiber lasers.
Blue arrays: The gang lens sits on top of a sealed cavity with all the substrate stacks in the arrays sealed behind a window in an inert gas backfill because the substrate stacks are hygroscopic, thus coated to prevent absorbing moisture from the air and if exposed to air then particulates will burn onto the facet at the tiny emission point at the P/N junction on the front facet and damage the protective coating, this lets moisture in and fractures the substrate. So the arrays use a gang lens making beam correction with c-lens pairs impractical.

(3) Yes and it revolves around beam quality and coherence length !

(4) Yes, but how compact the unit ?

(5) I'm not going to help design dazzlers here, but they should be green or white because eyes are most sensitive to green and receptors don't bleach ( protective mechanism ) in response to blue light, a flashing brighter-dimmer or " sick " flash pattern of green light, you can google and read if you want to learn but dazzlers present an issue with false claims of disability, lawsuits and criminal charges, not recommended, however a bright LED flashlight with a strobe function and a can of pepper spray are a good defense in many cases.

(6) That's true, maybe my butane/air powered ball bearing firing machine gun would be legal to build and sell, could be a winner.... maybe a lead ball with rifled barrel version ?

(7) Single mode diodes bigger than 1W I have not seen for sale, but quantum dot diodes are now being produced so they are coming.

(8) Be careful not to set a nest on fire where you can't extinguish it and burn down your house.
EDIT: Those tatto lasers are 500.00 not 5000.00..... did you mean the 2K fiber, yea the source units are coming down, they will get stronger in time as well.

 

[RedCowboy]

Here's a good site for learning and looking up terminology.

Slab lasers

Slab lasers are solid-state bulk lasers where the gain medium has the form of a slab. Many of them can generate very high output powers.

www.rp-photonics.com

 

[thesimsdude]

So this guy wants to make and patent laser death rays *laugh* Good luck with that, only thing to come of that is Legislation preventing the sale of everything about this high powered hobby.

And if I read this right, homie said its his first build! Lay off the styro and do a first build at 1-5W.

the idea that IR rays would be safer to not blind people from the side makes them even more dangerous at high power.

 

[WizardG]

So this guy wants to make and patent laser death rays *laugh* Good luck with that, only thing to come of that is Legislation preventing the sale of everything about this high powered hobby.

And if I read this right, homie said its his first build! Lay off the styro and do a first build at 1-5W.

the idea that IR rays would be safer to not blind people from the side makes them even more dangerous at high power.

I think learning some physics may dampen their ambition a bit!

 

[RedCowboy]

So this guy wants to make and patent laser death rays *laugh* Good luck with that, only thing to come of that is Legislation preventing the sale of everything about this high powered hobby.

And if I read this right, homie said its his first build! Lay off the styro and do a first build at 1-5W.

the idea that IR rays would be safer to not blind people from the side makes them even more dangerous at high power.

The battery technology isn't here yet to build rifle/pistol sized " death rays " nor is the available laser tech, but it's coming faster than ever and inevitably we will have to hash it out with our legislators because many people/companies will advance personal laser weapons in the future, if not initially for the public then for the military and soldiers coming home will want their own variants for target shooting, hunting and yes, self defense.

OP isn't stupid, that's obvious and not ignorant either, it's easy to see he has done some reading and who knows if he knows much more than he's letting on or if he's actually curious and wanting to learn, but either way I am not afraid of this type of poster ( who wants to learn ) doing something stupid/malicious as much as some noob who's buying a near IR or any dpss laser from JL/online without knowing anything about the risks or proper laser safety and who thinks they already know plenty enough.

1400nm ( 1.4um ) or greater such as CO2 @ 10600nm is considered " eye safe " because our eyes can't focus light >1400nm ( 1.4um ) onto our retinas, yes a laser beam >1400nm can burn through an eyeball just like any human flesh, but it's the diffuse ( scattered ) light that poses a threat when in the UVA-visible-NIR range at high power levels. Example: An invisible 1080nm lasers spot on a wall a short distance away can blind you even though you can't see it and the beam never directly entered your eye when it's in the kW power range, but an " eys safe " wavelength laser of the same power won't.