Welcome to Laser Pointer Forums - discuss green laser pointers, blue laser pointers, and all types of lasers

Buy Site Supporter Role (remove some ads) | LPF Donations

Links below open in new window

FrozenGate by Avery

UV Lasers

LRMNmeyer

LRMNmeyer

0
Joined
Jul 25, 2008
Messages
504
Points
0
I've seen pictures and videos of every wavelength of light, except for UV. Does anyone here own one? The only place I've seen them sold is DL with prices over $10000. If you were burnt from this, would you get cancer? It's UV so... And for the record, I'm not considering buying one, just curious.
 





A 266nm DPSS UV laser will mess you up. It is ionizing and thus can destroy DNA. Furthermore it will give you cataracts if you take a shot to the eye. 355nm DPSS is not considered as dangerous regarding ionizing radiation but it'll still burn your skin to a crisp through several layers as well as give you cataracts for an eye shot. Nitrogen lasers (TEA etc), excimer and others will lase in the UV. Even argon lasers lase at 75nm but it never makes it out of the tube. These wavelengths are really not something you should mess with unless you really, and I mean really understand the dangers involved. They do fluoresce things pretty well though.
 
You're burned with UV every time you step outside. Sure, it's not in the concentration of a laser, but many people sit in it for hours many many times in their lifespan. The power levels of most UV lasers (aside from excimer and massive multi-beam platforms) aren't all that intimidating.

I;m aware Mr. Chimp doesn't condone the term "useless" in this context, but to a hobbyist like you or I, they are just that. They are invisible, and don't burn (in most cases). If you want fluorescence, get a black light or a blu-ray.
 
I've had several UV lasers, and aside from florescence spectroscopy they are rather boring, even the big boys like the SP Palladin 5 and Coherent AVIA 3 are pretty lame compared to a visible argon laser the same power level.

The scariest one i've seen is the FRE-D SP-171, doubled 488 to 244nm with a 12W beam balls out. REALLY, really dangerous SH**!

Excimers are in their on class of nastiness on many different levels, Kilowatt to megawatt pulses of UV in the JOULE range- great fun... :o

Here is a cute QCW one with a whopping 12mw of 355nm, sort of fun to play with. The beam is nearly invisible, not blue IRL
 

Attachments

  • ulaz.JPG
    ulaz.JPG
    31.7 KB · Views: 367
Cool. 12W of UV :o. I kind of thought it would burn well because higher wavelengths can be focused to smaller points. Thanks for the info.
 
iewed said:
Does anyone know what wavelength this laser operates at?
If it works, it seems like it would be an amazing deal.
Click to expand...

Those are just indigo lines (not quite violet, but close). I believe they're around 50-100mW
 
We've sold a few 266 and 355nm lasers and they are especially dangerous due to the ionizing radiation and potential for DNA damage... I didn't even like to be in the same room as these things and I wouldn't recommend them for hobby use. They are very expensive and the risk of injury is just too great.
 
1 joule, 40 Hz, 60-120 ns pulse width excimer laser here! ohh how I love the smell of ozone in the morning! lol

248nm is some really wild stuff. this thing has so much peak power you can really hear were the beam is hitting. It’s kind of weird when you hit your figure and see a puff of smoke, but you can’t feel a thing :o

I always joke saying, now if only we could convert this thing to CW then we would have the ultimate dooms day ray! lol
 
one of the additional dangers of UV lasers is that due to their photochemical activity, even faint stray light or reflections (on the wall or mounts for instance), can cause damages when exposed to for a few hours: individual exposures in the UV does add up, and a high power short exposure will have similar effect to long exposure to diffuse reflection.
:o
 
k-shell said:
1 joule, 40 Hz, 60-120 ns pulse width excimer laser here! ohh how I love the smell of ozone in the morning! lol

248nm is some really wild stuff. this thing has so much peak power you can really hear were the beam is hitting. It[ch8217]s kind of weird when you hit your figure and see a puff of smoke, but you can[ch8217]t feel a thing :o

I always joke saying, now if only we could convert this thing to CW then we would have the ultimate dooms day ray! lol
Click to expand...

So do you have to wear a suit or something? :-/

Too bad for all these dangers.Those shortwaves flouresce a lot more stuff and they're invisible, could be pretty cool in a pointer, if not for all the dangers and cancer. :D
 
if you wanna play with uv make a TEA laser they are not too dangerous (around 20-100mw) i have made n played around with one before its cool for as while finding things to flourece but then converted it into a mini railgun
 
I'm thinking of make a tea laser for a science fair. Do you think i would be allowed to bring it to school if its in a case.How loud is it.Thanks
 
The one a friend of mine and I made 30 years ago was very loud with the exposed spark gap. Maybe you could enclose it or get a thyratron trigger.

Mike
 
You must log in or register to reply here.





Back
Top