He-Ne Lasers! Green Laser, Yellow Laser, Red Laser & Dual Wavelength He-Ne Laser!

Рет қаралды 5,353

3 жыл бұрын

Episode 25
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In this video, I demonstrate colored Helium-Neon Lasers! The first 3 are manufactured by Lasos, with the following specs:
A red Laser 632.8nm 11mW
A Yellow/Amber Laser 594nm 2.2mW
A Green Laser 543nm 1.16mW
Later on, I force a vintage green Helium Neon Laser to generate 2 wavelengths simultaneously!
The Yellow Laser was bought from Mike at mikeselectricstuff, check out his videos here: / @mikeselectricstuff
The Laser itself featured in this awesome video: • Leica confocal microsc...
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Пікірлер: 65

@oxoniumgirl Жыл бұрын

I miss my old yellow HeNe, it was my most prized laser of my whole collection back when I was in the hobby in my 20s. Beautiful lab you've got!

@LesLaboratory Жыл бұрын

I had a beautiful little yellow He-Ne back in the day, just 6 inches long, and a multimode output, wish I had never sold it! Thanks, its coming along, but rapidly running out of room!

@Barc0d3 9 ай бұрын

What happened to your hobby/lab? :(

@w0003947 3 жыл бұрын

Fantastic lasers, got a 7.5mW red one 20yrs ago. Always wanted to get they yellow & green ones but cost a fortune back then, saw the ad from Uniphase. Does it ring a bell anyone? :-)

@LesLaboratory 3 жыл бұрын

They still do! There is an American company wanting > @$1000 USD for a used Yellow. If you want to get your hands on a Yellow or Green, put "Leica Confocal Microscope" in your searches. These often contain: Argon Ion (Multiline) manufactured by Lasos, Red He-Ne, Yellow or Green He-Ne (Depending on the configuration) also all Lasos, and sometimes a 651nm Melles Griot DPSS Laser

@christopherleubner6633 Жыл бұрын

One of the most unique HeNe lasers ive seen is a tunable transition one made by pms. You could go from red to green. 🤓

@LesLaboratory Жыл бұрын

Yeah, I have lusted after those for so long, but never seen one in the wild! I was pretty happy to coax some red out of this green tube, but it would have been nice to see a flicker of orange as well.

@RingingResonance 13 күн бұрын

I had no idea that a green HeNe laser needs a specific isotope of helium to function. I always thought it was done with the tuning of the resonate cavity and the mirror coatings.

@bpark10001 10 ай бұрын

There is another reason for the ballast resistors on both ends. HeNe's orange, yellow, especially green have VERY low gain, & ANY contamination of the internal mirror's surfaces kills the output. Keeping the ends of the tube hot discourages condensation of "junk" sputtered off the cathode on the mirrors, as usually the mirrors are the coolest part of the tube. No grinding of the bore is necessary! (The grinding is for precision & straightness of the bore. The bore is also tapered to "fit" the mode.) I have Spectra-P 124 lasers (15mw when running at 633nm). I got mirrors from Particle Measurement Systems to try them in SP 124 laser (tube has Brewster windows, mirrors are external) for 612, & 594. I Put in "high reflector" mirror in the laser back. Power jumped up to 18mw @ 633. Then in turn, I put in 612 mirror (got 7mw) & 594 (got 2mw). PMS claimed they were not sure the mirrors would work as the higher losses due to the windows. I recovered the SP124 laser by soaking the tube in helium to replace that which diffused out through the glass. I re-fired the getters to clean up the gas mix. I did all of this without ever opening the tube! The windows are epoxy sealed, still working! This company makes multi-line HeNe laser www.findlight.net/lasers/gas-lasers/hene-lasers/multi-line-tunable-helium-neon-laser-lstp-1010

@therealchayd Жыл бұрын

This takes me back! I used to have a Spectra Physics 155 HeNe, used this for my final year A level project (a laser projector, and part time neighbourhood cat exerciser!), it's crazy how far things have come in terms of size and complexity and output power.

@LesLaboratory Жыл бұрын

For sure, I do love vintage laser hardware though! :-)

@jhonsqueaks4573 3 жыл бұрын

You Never Stop To Please Me!!!. Amazing Work Sir!!!.

@LesLaboratory 3 жыл бұрын

Thanks!

@andymouse 3 жыл бұрын

Great stuff.....cheers!

@machine2747 2 жыл бұрын

Your laser videos are great. Please keep doing them. I always learn something watching.

@LesLaboratory 2 жыл бұрын

Awesome thanks! You are welcome!

@dash8brj Жыл бұрын

My first laser was a 3mW 632nm Siemens tube, powered by a home built kit laser power supply. I now have twenty times that power in a diode laser. I still have a HeNe tube around here somewhere, a 5mW unit. That and the diode are my only class III/IIIB - everything else is class IV, even my ion (ILT 5500A with multiline optics)

@johnwalker194 2 жыл бұрын

Just found your channel and subscribed at the speed of light 😉 I knew he/ne had a few different lines of output but this is the first time I've seen it demonstrated 😊 I have an old club laser with two lovely open red tubes that seem to also have a blue glow when viewed through goggles or welding glasses, can see the whole bore when running 😎 also have four Philips laserdisc players with tubes to play with, thank you for your awesome content .

@LesLaboratory 2 жыл бұрын

Thanks! Cool, yeah there is are some interesting tubes in old club lasers. Ah, the old Philips laser-disk player tubes, that as my first ever He-Ne Laser.

@johnwalker194 2 жыл бұрын

@@LesLaboratory cheers dude ! My hope is to get at least one running at some point and playing one of the original laserdiscs ! The focus mirror pivots dry out first I believe and the laser lens loses its grip on the disc ? The beam on those tubes is pinpoint and òne of the best I've seen 😎

@suhailab3634 3 жыл бұрын

very nice lasers!

@florinpetrache7834 3 жыл бұрын

very cool lasers.

@mikeselectricstuff 3 жыл бұрын

Never occurred to me there might be a second ballast resistor!

@LesLaboratory 3 жыл бұрын

There are all sorts of methods used for starting tubes, sometimes they run conductive tape the length of the envelope as well. It seems splitting the ballast is cheap and easy, and reliable but then there are two failure points. It was crispy for sure and the heat had managed to de-solder the cathode wire which was resting on the case, so it was starting, but not very happy about it. The thing I still haven't figured out, is why the failure in the first place. The Jury is still out on whether the PSU failed, and took out the ballast, of the other way around. The PSU was certainly trying to pull and push more current that it should have been before it finally went pop again!

@r100curtaincall 3 жыл бұрын

@@LesLaboratory Ballast resistors tend to get very hot, and they tend to break down under the high-voltage, especially if they are carbon or metal oxide. Failure of the ballast will cause a negative resistance scenario for the tube, and it will flicker because it will begin to act like a relaxation oscillator. It’s pretty uncommon for them to fail but if they do the tube cannot run without it. I actually own, and test many many henes of all types, they are still one of my favorite laser types to this very day

@beatrixjones2982 2 жыл бұрын

New subscriber right here. Great info

@LesLaboratory 2 жыл бұрын

Thanks, great to have you! Please feel free to share these videos!

@simonward2953 3 жыл бұрын

Great vid and explanation Les!. I never knew there was other colors available that surprised me a bit there! ;-) I have a tube with shroud removed and looks intact very clean sadly i don't have the psu it was removed from an old laser disk player, I may have to try and build a psu to get it running hopefully it still works there just something about He-ne lasers :-D

@LesLaboratory 3 жыл бұрын

The beam quality of He-Ne's is awesome. There is a quick and dirty He-Ne supply here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/kL-qqKyf37nYZ40.html or you can head on over to Sam's Laser FAQ for plenty of schematics: www.repairfaq.org/sam/laserhsc.htm

@raymondzhao9557 2 жыл бұрын

cooooool

@bluethunder6801 Жыл бұрын

Cat lasers now lol. Fantastic though love tge real things

@pimohbusiness 2 жыл бұрын

can you do a demo how to calculate SO2 in tonnes/day using that spectrometer? TY

@TheTablet314 Жыл бұрын

The usual 5mW Thorlabs HeNe in my lab lases as 632 nm and 640 nm at the same time. Quite annoying, I have to throw out the 640 nm line with a bandpass. Maybe yours do too?

@LesLaboratory Жыл бұрын

Nice! You are lucky modern tubes normally do a good job of making sure they are single wavelength. Normally you have to force them to behave in this way. I am working on a new spectrometer just now, and it will be interesting to see if additional weak lines can be picked out!

@Zenodilodon 3 жыл бұрын

Interesting, I have plans on trying to rebuild a SpectraPhysics Stabelite into a yellow. I did not know about the bore needed any special treatment nor the use of isotopes for the green. I'll have to look into those topics as this is the first time I am hearing about such things. Also are you interest in a proper driver for you 561nm MG laser? I have a spare and it's yours if you want it.

@LesLaboratory 3 жыл бұрын

Sounds cool! Yeah there is some stuff about it on laserfaq.org There is also a lot of info to be dug out of Patents as well. There have been people who have managed to get all sorts of wavelengths out of tubes, to perhaps isotopically pure neon just result in better gain. A lot of the tech is closely guarded by manufacturers, and a lot can be learned by patent digging. Sure, what a kind offer, DM if you like.

@Zenodilodon 3 жыл бұрын

@@LesLaboratory I'll send an email shortly.

@r100curtaincall 3 жыл бұрын

It’s possible to get red and orange out of the spectra physics lasers but it’s pretty challenging to get yellow…sometimes depending on the situation, green is nearly impossible. Green and yellow usually need an isotope and pressure change in order to make it work well, since the gain is so low.

@Zenodilodon 3 жыл бұрын

@@r100curtaincall Currently the laser isn't in good shape as is, The HR is ( I have a new one ) and the getter has signs of the white death. I spoke with Sam G and sent him an image of the lines I am getting from the bore through a diffraction grating. It has a strong spontaneous emission of the yellow line however that could also lead to low yield in stimulated emission. I certainly have an uphill battle with the project.

@r100curtaincall 3 жыл бұрын

@@Zenodilodon Yeah, alot of old SP lasers are not in good shape due to how old they are. nearly all of them were sealed with a low vapor epoxy, and are pretty much unanimously all in various states of decay. A white getter in and of itself isn't a problem, but it indicates leakage. if the getter isn't completely exhausted and the tube has not been contaminated, it is likely that instead the power has instead declined due to loss of Helium. The drop in pressure will cause the tube's dropout current to rise as the tube warms up, which can cause failure of power supplies, especially if the ballast is insufficient. I have many of them that require a higher current than normal to keep them lit and outputting correct amounts of power. A few I've actually had to 'soak' in helium for long periods of time to allow them to stay lit at reasonable current.

@leothecrafter4808 Жыл бұрын

I have a Laserworld 2000 rebranded REO green tube that I have yet to test. I'm not willing to give it away as it is my only green HeNe but if you're willing to swing around to germany you could play with it

@LesLaboratory Жыл бұрын

Nice! Try it out! sometimes plain 1st surface mirrors will do.

@leothecrafter4808 Жыл бұрын

@@LesLaboratory I've tried it just today and it works fine as a green HeNe although it appears to have a TEM01* aka donut mode. I'll try with some first surface and maybe dichroic mirrors next. I'll let you know how it goes.

@beatrixjones2982 2 жыл бұрын

Hello there! New here. We are trying to learn more about lasers. Could you tell me the best bang for our buck?

@LesLaboratory 2 жыл бұрын

It depends on your intended application, what do you want to do?

@HuygensOptics 3 жыл бұрын

Nice, I've never seen a yellow. HeNe before. By the way, does your mum know that you are smoking so much in your room? 😉

@LesLaboratory 3 жыл бұрын

😂 Ha, smoking? Glycerin vapor. I used to is Magican, but the stuff gets everywhere and is a pain to clean up.

@HuygensOptics 3 жыл бұрын

@@LesLaboratory Nice trick, I guess if you use very clean glycerine, it just evaporates and leaves no contamination on the optics. Thanks for the reply.

@LesLaboratory 3 жыл бұрын

@@HuygensOptics Meh, Glycerine sttill makes a mess, but its a water and alcohol soluble mess. Whatever it is Magican (which I used to use) leaves a film of oil over everything.

@TiagoTiagoT 3 жыл бұрын

@@LesLaboratory Would using one of those ultrasonic mist generators, with distilled water, be an option? Or would contaminants in the air and on the surfaces the droplets land on still make it conductive enough to damage some electronics? Would dry ice be too much work to keep around/buy before each vid, or perhaps be dangerous because of oxygen displacement; or would it be a viable alternative?

@LesLaboratory 3 жыл бұрын

@@TiagoTiagoT I have a mist generator, they make everything very wet. Pretty cool toys though! Unfortunately dry ice is not a thing where I live (although, I think there is a company that will ship it at cost), which also sucks, because it is awesome stuff. I was thinking, if build an enclosure for my stuff with windows in it for the beam, I can pretty much do what I want smoke wise, without ruining expensive optics

@florianf4257 3 жыл бұрын

Hi Les, you can even get tuneable HeNe Lasers, e.g. from Research Electro Optics (ROE Inc, www.reoinc.com/products/hene-lasers/Multi-line ). I had a old (mid-90s) one in my lab at uni, was quite handy to calibrate my spectrometer. Interestingly, i got quite strong lasing at 640nm too, while i was never able to get the 643nm line to work.

@LesLaboratory 3 жыл бұрын

Yeah that would be sweet! Are they the littrow prism tuned ones? According to some folks on laserfaq, some standard REO tubes, especially yellow, have produced some quite surprising wavelengths with a third resonator mirror.

@florianf4257 3 жыл бұрын

@@LesLaboratory I never opened the Laser, so i can't tell you how they exactly tune it. All i know for sure is that the endplate holding the high reflective morror is tilted a bit by a micrometer screw. The old 5W-Argon Laser i had in the lab used a HR-Assembly that consisted of a broadband-mirror and a little equilateral prism that was tilted to only resonate for the selected wavelength, so i wouldn't be surprised if ROE used something similar.

@florianf4257 3 жыл бұрын

@@LesLaboratory Googeled a bit out of curiosity, according to Sam's Laser FAQ (www.repairfaq.org/sam/laserhcl.htm#hclreotl ) they use a Littrow tuning prism. Additionally i found a few pictures of the internals at Laserpointerforums laserpointerforums.com/threads/tunable-helium-neon-laser.108005/

@r100curtaincall 3 жыл бұрын

Yes a lot of the early 90s tubes tended to have wonky mirror configurations and sometimes ended up lasing multiple lines on accident. They do make a tunable that uses a littrow prisim, but it is very expensive….well over 5 or 6 thousand dollars.

@LesLaboratory 3 жыл бұрын

@@r100curtaincall It's pity there aren't more modern versions of the multi-line tube. Perhaps it would be worth me hassling manufacturers for out of spec tubes that are doing weird things...