Trying to find a low divergent green laser

[Spikey]

Hello everyone. Firstly can I take the opportunity to thank all contributors for your rich knowledge and the constantly helpful reminders about safety. About fifteen or more years ago I bought a Laserglow Aries green laser. (at least I think that's what it is) It's recently died on me, so I'm looking to replace it maybe with something a little more powerful. I've loved that laser but maybe the technology has moved on? Following advice provided on here I've been looking at the Sanwu Striker, however on Youtube reviews I've noticed the beam is a noticeably divergent rectangle even with he beam expander. Is this a product of the greater power? and possibly the diode type? Is there a laser anyone would care to recommend. I'm not interested in burning stuff, just a coherent stable preferably round beam. I have plenty of land here and live in the middle of nowhere so the safety of others is not a concern. Thank you for your help. I really appreciate it.

 

[Shmackitup]

There's green laser diodes that do well over 2 watts now. However, the divergence is pretty bad but can be corrected fairly well with a beam expander if you don't mind the extra optics. I have 3X and 5X beam expanders in stock and I just tested out a 10X that works great.

 

[RA_pierce]

The high power, high-divergence diodes can be improved with additional optics but that adds additional cost among other things.
Shmackitup mentioned beam expanders - while they do reduce divergence, they don't actually improve the beam profile, instead, they magnify the beam at the aperture to reduce divergence. The consequence is that you end up with a very large beam at the aperture and a reduction in power output due to optical losses and partial masking.
There are other ways to improve the beam profile but I won't get into that here unless you'd like more info.

You can get 200 mW or so out of some green diodes with very good divergence and a [more or less] round beam. The diodes that can produce these characteristics are "single mode" diodes.
One issue with any diode laser is that the beam quality is very poor compared to DPSS lasers, like your Aries. Specifically, the beams are more elliptical, more divergent (for powers above 200 mW), and produce lots of "splatter" due to incidental emissions and reflections. A lot of these issues can be ameliorated with some fancy optics, but you won't find a commercial "hobby" laser with these optics built in.
The real benefit of a diode laser is stability, efficiency, and compactness.

A lot of people here recommend Sanwu for pre-built lasers. I can't speak to them myself (being a DIYer).

What power was your Aires producing? If I recall correctly, they were originally available for up to 200 mW or so.

 

[Spikey]

There's green laser diodes that do well over 2 watts now. However, the divergence is pretty bad but can be corrected fairly well with a beam expander if you don't mind the extra optics. I have 3X and 5X beam expanders in stock and I just tested out a 10X that works great.

Thank you for your reply. What I don't understand though is why a coherent light source is so divergent, whereas my laser from 15 years ago seemed pretty good. Do the beam expanders allow you to simply focus the beam on a specific point?

The high power, high-divergence diodes can be improved with additional optics but that adds additional cost among other things.
Shmackitup mentioned beam expanders - while they do reduce divergence, they don't actually improve the beam profile, instead, they magnify the beam at the aperture to reduce divergence. The consequence is that you end up with a very large beam at the aperture and a reduction in power output due to optical losses and partial masking.
There are other ways to improve the beam profile but I won't get into that here unless you'd like more info.

You can get 200 mW or so out of some green diodes with very good divergence and a [more or less] round beam. The diodes that can produce these characteristics are "single mode" diodes.
One issue with any diode laser is that the beam quality is very poor compared to DPSS lasers, like your Aries. Specifically, the beams are more elliptical, more divergent (for powers above 200 mW), and produce lots of "splatter" due to incidental emissions and reflections. A lot of these issues can be ameliorated with some fancy optics, but you won't find a commercial "hobby" laser with these optics built in.
The real benefit of a diode laser is stability, efficiency, and compactness.

A lot of people here recommend Sanwu for pre-built lasers. I can't speak to them myself (being a DIYer).

What power was your Aires producing? If I recall correctly, they were originally available for up to 200 mW or so.

Thank you so much for your reply. This answers many of my questions. Yes, I believe the Aries was around that sort of mark. So should I be looking for a DPSS laser do you think?

 

[paul1598419]

I still have a small number of up to 200 mW 532 nm laser modules. Most actually output around 190 mW. But, the beam is perfectly round.