WTB: "Lab" Diffraction Gratings

[Greenmechanic]

I need some cool toys for my new "baby"!
I am Looking for a "lab grade" Transmission Beam Fan Diffraction Grating and/Or a Reflection Beam Fan, if anybody has one cheap/fair.
The only places I've seen some are from Dragon Lasers, at $11.99, I doubt they are close to lab grade.
Edmond Optics are a little more then I want to spend, ($100)
Also interested in any other optics that will split the wavelengths of an ML Argon or produce other neat effects.
:thanks:

 

[Bluefan]

Thorlabs has nice grating. We have A LOT from Thorlabs at my university, I've recently had a few of their gratings in my setup. The ruled diffraction grating work pretty neat, a high efficiency in just 1 order. A transmission grating usually has 3 orders where you'd probably need only 1.

But it is the real stuff, not toy stuff, so it has it's price...

 

[Cyparagon]

High quality gratings are set in glass rather than plastic. The Dragon lasers gratings are good.

 

[ElektroFreak]

I have one of these:

DEOS Silicon Diffraction Grating Mirror CO2 - eBay (item 390016805648 end time May-06-10 18:29:04 PDT)

It's a Coherent silicon grating intended for extremely high-powers. It gives nice clean orders of diffraction at any power level, though.. great for multi-line systems. It doesn't come much more "lab" than Coherent.

 

[Bluefan]

from the auction text in the link:

I haven't measured the grating frequency, but a 532nm laser gives a total of 5 orders.

Since DEOS was a company making very high tech CO2 lasers, my guess was that this optic was designed to select a single CO2 line in the laser cavity. However, an ebayer who use to work for DEOS emailed me to say that this part number was for a mirror, and that the grating effect might be from diamond machining the surface.

5 orders for a grating means the grating period is low, and the design wavelength is probably somewhere deep in the IR, like with a CO2 laser.

 

[ElektroFreak]

the OP didn't ask for grating specifics like period, etc.. He did ask for cheap, and he won't find Coherent gratings cheaper I don't think.

As for 'design wavelength' all I can tell you is that they work great for every wavelength I have (355nm through mid IR).. I use mine all the time.

 

[Greenmechanic]

I have one of these:

DEOS Silicon Diffraction Grating Mirror CO2 - eBay (item 390016805648 end time May-06-10 18:29:04 PDT)

It's a Coherent silicon grating intended for extremely high-powers. It gives nice clean orders of diffraction at any power level, though.. great for multi-line systems. It doesn't come much more "lab" than Coherent.

Thank you, this is just what I was looking for, and at a good price!

I haven't measured the grating frequency, but a 532nm laser gives a total of 5 orders.

Does this mean this grating produces 5 sets of lines,(total for an Argon =30)? Or something different?
I don't know much about the ratings on D/G's

 

[Bluefan]

Look at wikipedia for the theory. Usually in a lab you only want 1 diffraction order. Light goes in, comes out in different angles. When you take a grating for a different wavelength, like this one for a co2 laser, you may get 5 beams out like in this case, or nothing usefull if you have a grating for a shorter wavelength.

This grating is I think ment for a CO2 laser, and for visible light you will get about 5 beams for 1 incoming beam. A proper grating may have efficiencies up to ~90% in a single order, that's one spreading beam with 90% of the incoming energy.

 

[ElektroFreak]

So where would one find an inexpensive mirror grating that only provides one order of diffraction over the full range of multi-line argon wavelengths?