what to do with a 150W 980nm laser pump module?

[Doctorbass]

I just got that great laser head that was coupled to a fiber. It was on a big rackmount case equipment of 75K $.. bnut declared scrap since few years and was accumulating dust at my uncle's work. He gaved me it and i removed the good components from it.

I kept the 15V 63A Lambda power supply and the big aluminum block with 8 powerfull laser diodes inside and all aligned with 2 axel tilt mirror each in a complex folding before ending to a 1" lens into the 600um fiber. ( fiber is broken so i just kept the laser module with his output lens. The entire module is watercooled as well.

I was able to push up to 30A during short period for testing and playing with.

It have spec for 7A threshold current and 52A typ operating current

It burn metal:eg:.. As well i was wearing my OD:6 protective glass

I just wonder if i could find a kind of BBO or OBO cristal to make frequency doubling and get 488-490nm with ?

I would dream to have that great 488 blue!.. am i dreaming?.. is it only good to make a little cnc to cut wood or thin parts?

Doc

 

[skavier480]

get your self a Crystal and try pumping into it.
the output of the final crystal wavelenght could be anything,
but you will have only an output of about 15watts at best.
also some Pictures of it would be nice.

 

[IsaacT]

One issue I see is the crystal you choose overheating and melting. I am not sure, but I imagine you would need to buy a ridiculously nice crystal set so as to not have them melt in front of you. 30W is a lot of heat(understatement of the century right there)

Thanks,
Isaac

 

[ARG]

I thought it said 150mW when I read the title. That laser is a great find, but I have no clue what there is to do with it. It may make an okay CNC, but CO2 lasers are generally better for that.

 

[sopark4000]

I say try and get some crystals for frequency doubling. But as others have already said they would have to be of a decent size and of good quality so as not to melt them.

Crystal, laser crystal, Q-switch crystal, nonlinear crystal.

 

[Bionic-Badger]

Are those stacked and then cut microscope slides they built in there?

 

[benmwv]

get your self a Crystal and try pumping into it.
the output of the final crystal wavelenght could be anything,
but you will have only an output of about 15watts at best.
also some Pictures of it would be nice.

Not sure why you say it could be anything? 980 doubled is 490. Of course the laser probably isn't 980nm exactly, but still it would be close to 490.

I have some high power 980 and wanted to do the same thing. I have the crystals now too. I was told it wouldn't work but I still want to try it. With a very good temperature controlling setup I think it could be done.

I am also interested in what the stacks of glass are for, they seem way too messy to be any part of the laser optics.

 

[Bionic-Badger]

The stacks might be a good way to knife-edge the beam though.

 

[Meatball]

I was thinking that they are simple "total internal reflection" type prisms. You can widely re-arrange several beams with a bunch of large scale "fiber optics" type optics.

I consider knife edging too, but the edge are not so uniform.

 

[benmwv]

From the 2nd and 3rd to last pics I doubt they are anything optical at all:
1. They are definitely not aligned well
2. They are covered all over the sides in epoxy
3. There is writing on the top
4. They seen to have been added some time after it was originally made. (You can see where they scratched the oxidation from the metal before epoxying them on)

But I could be wrong, if they aren't optical then why would they be there.
From the last picture it does look like they are much more uniform on one side.

 

[LSRFAQ]

Even though you have boatloads of power, you need to actively match the diode temperature to the crystal mode matching temperature to about .01 degree. This is for non-critical matching. If you lock the diode to a external etalon cavity (Pound Driver Hall locking) you stand a chance.

The diode needs to pump the doubling crystal, which is mounted in a four mirror resonant ring cavity. Only a single mode diode need apply.

Translated, a lot of money, a lot of custom software, and only one diode can be resonant to pump the crystal at a time.

I need a similar wavelength at work and looked into this...

Only thing you could probably pump with 980 iis a Erbium rod.

Best guess on world's worse glass optic is they scatter the ghost beam from the focusing lenses for safety.
I'd have tilted the focusing lens to keep ghost beams out of the diode.

Steve