Planning to attempt building a Ruby Laser

[twenglish1]

Been a while since I have been around here, took a break from lasing for a while, but recently started working on designing and building a hopefully functional flash pumped ruby laser, been experimenting with some large flash lamps, at relatively lower energy levels with regards to a powerful laser, approx 150 joule discharges as of now. Been experimenting with flash indicator bulbs for cell towers and such. waiting for an INP3-7/80 tube I purchased on eBay. Currently my hold up is, i seem to be having issues figuring out what types of mirrors I need for the resonant cavity. I understand the concept of HR on one side and OC mirror on the other side for the output, but how do I select which mirrors to use? HR mirror just needs to be able to handle the discharge energy right? OC mirror should be coated and designed for the output wavelength? Along with being able to handle the energy at hand. Am I missing anything? Most of the articles I have been reading seem to leave out the details about the mirrors. Hopefully someone here will be able to assist me in my endeavors.

 

[Anthony P]

Don't have a specific answer.
This week, Edmund optics announced that they are now capable of custom polishing and mirror coating laser crystals such as ruby. Sam's laser FAQ has a lot of info, and so do the Iannini books.

Custom Laser Optics Capabilities | Edmund Optics

Learn about Edmund Optics' custom laser optics component and assembly manufacturing capabilities

www.edmundoptics.com

 

[twenglish1]

I will check them out, definitely have time, flash tube is shipping from the ukraine and the ruby rod is shipping from russia so that will probably at least take a month, need to start designing a cavity and then still need to solve the mirror and lense issues, everything is mostly taken care of on the power supply end aside from adding more capacitors once I get my laser flash tube

 

[Anthony P]

I was thinking of the mirror coating applied directly to the ends of the crystal. Edmunds is expensive, but they do have technical advisors who are happy to help.

 

[twenglish1]

I read through Sam's laser FAQ, lots of good info there.

From my understanding the HR mirror needs to be as reflective as possible, and the OC mirror needs to be 70 - 90% reflective at operating wavelength, 694nm in the case of ruby. I also remember reading somewhere that optical cavity length plays a role as well, and that it is supposed to be proportional to the lasers wavelength, will need to do more searching around on this.