Stuff like this is what motivates people to become biotechnologists. Making whatever you want, playing with organisms and modern technology creating something that sounds like magic

the fact your laser made of "trash" worked better means the fates have decided you are a garbage bender now. you made too many amazing things from scrap that it's your medium now. o7 keep up the amazing work

Thanks for this. Almost 40 years ago in 8th grade I had the assignment to 'design' a biological creature. I had been obsessed with dye lasers from a library book on how to make your own (I later dug into research and Amateur Scientist articles), and imagined a creature with a biolaser built in, with a flash lamp pumped with the biology of an electric eel, with fluorescent liquid similar to a jellyfish, biolenses of a squid's eye, and partially reflective material similar to a cat's iris or the skin of some fish. The teacher was very critical and said it was so improbable. But that wasn't the assignment, and I remained convinced all this time that all the components were possible, with occasional flashes of vindication coming out, including this one. I still have the desire to build a dye laser so I will have to pop it a little higher in my project list.

Neat stuff! The rail laser is crazy, never seen anything like it.

i absolutely love how you discurage from building the laser but still provide all the details "just in case"

this brings a whole new meaning to flesh light

I have worked with dye lasers and want to share some insights: - You do not need UV light to pump Rhodamine 6G. The frequency-doubled output of a Nd:YAG laser (532 nm) is typically used and is much more efficient since the quantum defect to the emission wavelengths is small. - A pumped stagnant dye solution will quickly get trapped in states that are unresponsive to pump light. The dye solution is therefore typically circulated so that the dye molecules have time to return to the ground state before being pumped again. - The optimal dye concentration depends on the length of the cuvette with longer cuvettes needing less concentration. The concentration also shifts the tuning range of the dye with higher concentrations shifting to higher wavelengths. - The surfaces of the cuvette can themselves act like a laser resonator, resulting in an unwanted beam. The cuvette is typically vertically tilted to steer that beam away from the intentional one. - The positioning of the cylindrical focal lens is quite important as you have correctly identified. However, tilting the lens like that results in aberrations that lead to uneven illumination. A better solution would be to move the whole lens closer or farther away from the cuvette. Where the lens needs to be rotated is around the axis set by the pump beam. This tilt angles the focal line. You can either align the focal line with the laser resonator for maximum conversion efficiency or tilt it slightly away from it to limit the amount of amplified spontaneous emission that travels along with the dye laser beam. - Rhodamine 6G is indeed a nice dye.

As one of my optics profs once said: almost everything will lase if you pump it hard enough. Also, and without getting into the intricacies of building a high end laser, a simple trick to make the laser cavity more stable (which should make it easier to align) is to replace one of the end mirrors with a slightly convex mirror (i.e. with focal length larger than your cavity length).

Dude, if I had known that you needed dyes I would have sent you some of every kind that I have on hand for free. I really need to get up with you on donating some stuff one day. As a chemical distributor, I have tons of dyes, just like these, that you could just have. Take fluorescein for example, I have pounds upon pounds of the pure powder, plus tons of others. If you ever need anything like that, just let me know and I'll gladly send you a ton of each absolutely free. 😃

Literally synthesized molecules in an abandoned farm house for 2 years trying to make one of these dye lasers. And the meat laser? Way farther than i ever could achieve. I made 3 dyes but i could never get them into lasers. I didnt have ambition, or 3d printing but man. This was literally my dream as a 17 year old. Thank you for reminding me of the days of gold when chemistry channels like nurdrage and chemplayer and masterminds like styro the like Began to inspire me. You really rock, bro.

I built one of these when I was 13 not realizing how dangerous they were, I am still surprised and thankful I did not get electrocuted or blinded doing it!

How neat that you went over the build process in such detail

"Then I just download the genetic sequence from 'thingiverse' and quickly insert it into e-coli"😂😂😂😂

It really feels like stuff is ramping up this year! Looks like the infrastructure work over the last few years is really paying off.

Oh sweet 3D files for a dye laser. I have Been looking for this. Thank you!

"I maintain a huge collection of genetically engineered E Coli" belongs in an xkcd somewhere Thanks to StyroPyro I immediately recognized the TEA laser and am immediately scared. Also that feeling of building it all proper like and it works worse than the prototype is so much feels.

I can only imagine what your ultimate goal could be with all of this, I suspect that a lot of this stuff has already been played with in the big labs, but the fact that you are doing it here, just proves that ingenuity and the masses can prevail. Best to you, Ken.

You single-handedly convinced me to switch from physics to biology back in 2021. Mad science is awesome!

This video really takes me back about 35 years, when a friend and I puttered around with both N2 lasers and fluorescent dyes in our off time. Something that's not mentioned but should be kept in mind - Rhodamine 6G will stain *everything* you get it on, so aprons or other cover should also be worn in addition to PPE for the risks that will affect your health and not just your clothes.

Downright kaleidoscopic rush of a video, and all of it was actual genuine examples of what amazing, beguiling thing you're working on! _No wonder_ I'm subscribed to you guys.

“And I’m the only bio-engineer on KZfaq crazy enough to try. That, in a nutshell, is why I subscribed in the first place 😅

Modern science truly is amazing, can't wait for the meat laser.

great to see ur lab growing well! sputtering, meatcubator, lasing set-ups, so cool!

I'm a laser physicist by trade and this is a fantastic video. Most of it is familiar, but i'm very impressed by how well you synthesize all these different topics and condense them without necessarily reducing them to an inaccurate form. Specifically, the topic of grating based mode-matching is awesome and a bit of a pain to explain well, but you managed to do it in less than 30s! One critique is that the TEA doesnt work via stimulated emission, but rather ASE (amplified spontaneous emission). This also means that although it is fairly temporally coherent, it isn't perfectly so which is why it only runs on a pulsed source.

"I wouldn't recommend you building this, but here is exactly how to build it" 😂

This gives me the same vibes as writing my engineering honours project, you've clearly done tonnes of amazing work and have absolutely no time to show us the immense amount of work you had to do to get to where you are. Very interesting and exciting video, loved it!!

I discovered Les's Lab few days ago, and what he does is very impressive, but also shows how some of these things are not as complex as they might initially look. I knew of your channel for years, but this is a great showcase of lasers. The dye lasers are cool. It is also mind blowing that anybody can just engineer DNA of a bacteria with just few clicks in a browser. Wow.

Loved this video. I once made a TEA laser in highschool for my science fair project. Used a neon sign transformer, some aluminum foil, painter's plastic, plexiglass, and aluminum rods to essentially make it. I wish I had access to information like this back in the day. Not that I'd know how to make these laser proteins but it would have made for a fun discussion along with how the UV laser worked and what it could be used for.

"I've done so much with so little for so long I can now do anything with nothing" I saw/read this many decades ago and thought I'd share in case you haven't read/heard. Very appropriate for you imo. Something I tell my kids and others, "There is nothing hard, just things you haven't learned yet" Enjoyed very much, be safe and hf learning.

your mad scientist projects have gotten so ambitious. this is some wild stuff man, can't wait to see how you make it work.

This is a crazy project. But your work is so amazing and inspiring. Good job bro!

Bro I didn’t even know you could do almost any of what you talked about, that’s super cool, like ordering custom dna things that grow with your desired codes or whatever you called it, wild man, keep it up

Thinking quickly, Dave crafted a laser out of cells, a dye, and a laser!

MEAT LASER!!! ok we are getting into supervillain territory. . . and i am 100% here for it

This is making me think about that silver nanoprism video from applied science a while back, and that’s one I’ve gone back to quite a few times. Great video, love this stuff as always

WHAAAT? Dude, love the synergy between disciplines and perceived simplicity you show here. That's beautiful science, I love it. Thank you.

It's weird seeing a video on such a sketchy laser machine and not be reminded how it'll delete my retina if i even think about looking at the the spot on the wall

Your nitrogen laser is a beautiful build! Far superior to mine I must say. Great video!

Thank you so much for posting the dye concentrations in sensible units! I'm making a rhodamine b dye laser with a SHG-YAG and the main unknown I've had trouble nailing down was how much dye to use.

So happy to see a fellow mad scientist on their way to making the potentially possible, possible. I haven’t taken any steps yet but I hope to in the next couple years

Impressive work! But don't forget to protect your skin from UV, good sunscreen is a good option if you dont want cover yourself up all the time

"We really don't recommend you try to build one, seriously it's super dangerous and could easily kill you in an instant. So anyway, here's exactly how you could build one."

This is absolutely awesome, thanks so much for sharing your work !

Oh sweet a new laser video. I missed the TEA laser video you made and hid.

For the love of god please please no one ever break this man's heart. If he turned evil we are doomed!

My lord this is an incredibly well crafted KZfaq video.

So cool! I did similar a few decades back but I made my pump with plexiglass and pumped it down with a fridge pump, soooo loud and yeah, I did burn my eyes a little being in the room without full circumference sheilding on the glasses. Lesson kids: ALWAYS wear eye protection that coverover your eyes all the way around to the skin when playing with lasers. What you can't see WILL blind you if you are careless. Loved the vid, subscribed.

Something I don't see anywhere which should be shouted from the rooftops. WHERE EYE PROTECTION WITH LASERS. Not sure if this is the type that needs it if it's a special case, but better not lose an eye.

nice!

For the first 3+ minutes all I've been wondering about how uv tends to kill cells, good thing he did take that into consideration for the video explanation

I am from Northern California, but this is the year that I am out of the state for my pre-doctoral internship… I am so sad that I’m going to miss seeing all of you when you would all be so close to my home. I hope you do this again!

Not what I was expecting to think about today but here it is and it’s fantastic

8:34 Just look at that coronal discharge! Going from the sharp corners as they should! Beautiful!

I've been waiting many years for more work to be done on bio lasers. Thank you sir.

Back in the 90s, a guy who worked at an air force base,gave me a laser that he found in storage. some guy had made it in the 70s or 80s in his spare time from a magazine article, but one of my favorite movies was My Science Project. So I had a very high opinion of it. In this video,I recognize a lot of the parts. Mine has an watched board for the base, & plans are ancient photocopies.

just brilliant, mad science and brilliant information delivery thanks ! keep making videos :)

As always super interesting content :D Thanks for sharing! :)

Wow, this is good. I have never thought living cells could be used for stimulated emission! Now I have gotta build my own!

We missed your videos and mad scientist inspiration!

I used to work in laser manufacturing and i sure do love ThorLabs. They are so fun for an industrial supply company.

The amount of information we get here for free boggles my mind every time.... Can't wait to see what's coming up next in the future.

You guys have the secret sauce for massive technology advances - cross pollination of these vastly different disciplines. Massive love from Beryl CNC!

love your content hope to see more soon

Brilliant video. Absolutely buzzing I found your channel. It’s exactly the type of content I like to see. Keep up the great work!

Wow! Thank you so much for the information. I am now a subscriber and look forward to personally going far down the laser world rabbit hole. Again, thank you so much... GL

I love stuff like this, I'm such a science nerd lol. But this is a real cool video bro, I really like what you're doing! You definitely earned another subscriber. Thank you for stimulating my brain!✌🏼

8:33 love the micro blue antennas out of the corners when it's not arcing

keep building from scratch I love learning form scratch. Amazing stuff!

Bro, this was cool as heck. Keep it up, you inspired me to look for a hackerspace in my own town for a radiotelescope project, or making some graphene or making genetically modified bacteria (have no friends to do them with so i am waiting for the day i finally decide to try something)

I wish styropyro helped you out with this, would have been the colab of the century

I believe this man's work will bring forth some good discoveries one day

Better watch out, Styropyro might come looking for you with the laser bazooka

Man, I love this guy's videos. I wish I grew up nextdoor.

This is interesting. I worked with a 1-watt CW laser that used Rhodamine 6G. My first thought about using a more complex molecule is that more of the light will be trapped in states that are not optically connected to the ground state. A solution to this for dye lasers is to circulate the dye at a fast rate to keep the dye exposed to the pumping laser "fresh."

I spoke to the scientist that created Glo- fish and ive been wanting to learn more about different proteins from jellyfish and other specimens. I never considered they could be made into a laser 😂. Love this channel already.

watching stuff like this makes me realize how much of my life i have let go by without having my childhood want to build things and experiment ..life isn't over tho.. inspiring :)

First video I've seen from you. Fascinating stuff. Subbed.

Quick reminder that 20-ish years ago nearly everyone had a 20,000 volt flyback transformer just a few feet away from them protected from touch by just a few millimeters of plastic. I am of course talking about CRT televisions and in case you are wondering YES people did die poking around in them with screwdrivers.

I was so excited to see this video! as someone who is a big fan of you and Les’ lab and as someone who happens to have a few vials of purified GFP laying around, I have wondered about this exact idea. I am so excited by the idea of you trying it for real! I hope to see you at OpenSauce.

I came to a dead stop at “huge collection of genetically engineered E. coli.” To a guy with thousands of books, parts for obsolete computer architectures, and a ton of other random stuff “too good to throw away,” that seems weird. Yet you did something with it. I’m envious.

OMG! This is the thing! I suggested this back when the pandemic started!

I can't begin to imagine how many watchlists you're on, but I appreciate the work

Lasers of diverse colors is beautiful and exciting

Am very pleasantly surprised you made a video on rhodamine 6G as I’ve been looking at it for a while now

I’m definitely not going to do this, but if I wanted to this video would be a godsend. Well done

Something I am slowly becoming obsessed with is a true blue feathered chicken. I think I have found the right person. I will probably send you an email about this project for advice in the next year when I get more set up for this experiment!

Even thinking about this stuff is out of this world ^^

You know you're working with power when the device messes with the cameras ability to record

It so nice to see such high quality DIY content. I'm jealous on so many level!!! Love from Montréal

No period on the T.E.A acronym graphic. This isn't critical feedback, just a very relatable moment. Addicted to your channel now. Thank you!

Damn that's amazing, those colors are so beautiful. I miss my days in the spectrometry lab. Looking forward to when you can sear your initials into meat with... umm... meat. :)

Loved this so much!!!

A term that might be useful for adjustment is a micrometer screw, thimble or similar. A very smooth, precise piece of machenery for relatively cheap.

He has (finally) gone completely insane. Good

I would really love to see all those mad scientist creators collaborate on one project just to see what did they create

Dude, I stick to the electrical/mechanical device side of biotechnology, and Damn you make me proud of my field! Fully channeling “knows enough about electricity to be incredibly dangerous” with that trash laser lol! That’s so cool!!!! You make tissue engineering topics so freaking cool and approachable, even to me, on the “opposite” side of the field, who never wants to touch wet lab stuff personally because of the “breathe wrong and its contaminated and your cells are dead” aspect, but very highly respects those who work with it and advance the technology! (Also I had no clue you can just order custom plasmids and/or dna segments to splice into your cell lines now! That’s Badass!!) I’m gonna be following your channel super closely! This is hardcore mad science!

It will probably be covered in that next video, but I’m intrigued by the Dye from E. Coli at that Makerspace scale. Dye lasers are cool and all, but applying that to other uses of florescent dye (Microscopy Stains, Art, Non-Destructive Testing, etc) would be neat, especially with like how you said it being cheap.

"Meat Laser" might be the coolest/weirdest idea I've seen on KZfaq. And there is a lot of cool and weird stuff on KZfaq.

What a refreshing beacon of hope, rigor, and whimsy.

Can you make a video showing how you built those bioreactors using beakers and 3D printed parts?