[Ben Krasnow], builder of amazingly complex and technical devices, is finally starting work on his ruby laser. He’s been collecting parts for this project for the past few years, but only recently has he started recreating the first visible light laser.
While the design and manufacture of the first ruby laser was astonishingly complex, the basic idea behind it is pretty simple. [Ben]’s laser uses a synthetic ruby rhod with the ends ground optically flat. This rod is placed inside a flash tube. When the flash tube lights up, the rod absorbs the light and re-emits it as a coherent beam for several milliseconds. This beam bounces between two mirrors – one fully reflective and another partially reflective – and emits a constant stream of coherent photons. It’s tremendously more complex than simply connecting a laser diode to a power source, but replicating a build that graced the covers of Time and Newsweek only fifty years ago is pretty impressive
Right now, [Ben] has most of the mechanical and optical parts of his ruby laser on his workbench. The next step is constructing a huge capacitor bank to charge the flash tube every millisecond or so. What [Ben] will end up using his laser for remains up in the air, but if we come across some erbium or neodymium rods we’ll be sure to send them his way.
Not only is that awesome and we’ll implemented, but it allows me to make a reference to “The Fifth Element”…
-But who cares?
“synthetic ruby rhod” Yes, Chris Tucker’s character was pretty much that. ;)
Rod. It is a rod.
Also,
edit v.
1. prepare (written material) for publication by correcting, condensing, or otherwise modifying it.
I suppose a ruby laser would seem incredibly complex when the simple process for preparing a couple paragraphs in the production of profit is just too unmanageable.
fucking christ its a movie reference. 5th element.
you grammar warrior chucklefucks are really, really fucking annoying.
*You’re
*Fucking
*Christ
*it’s
*Fifth
*You
*chuckle-fucks
I think it is the whole ‘expecting to be competent at communicating in order to have a job or post-secondary education’ thing that brings people to the chuckle-fuck fold.
whatever you say Sheldon, you socially retarded bastard, Biznopple!
+1
I hope you realize that the person you are correcting made every one of those mistakes on purpose. That was kind of the entire joke.
Well, it wasn’t a very funny joke, now was it?
I suppose he didn’t think you could make a black man lase.
Wow, just how autistic ARE you?
would you like some fries with that?
thank you for not using capital letters in the spirit of hack a day
This guy has an amazing youtube channel. I especially laughed to his carbonated apple.
> [Ben]‘s laser uses a synthetic ruby rhod,,,,
Do you even read what you write? You’re obviously not even spell checking your posts at this point.
See:
https://www.google.com/search?q=ruby+rhod
As strider_mt2k and… that other guy have pointed out, it’s supposedly a reference to the movie “The 5th Element”.
I don’t quite fully understand the need for said reference myself (maybe I could understand if Ben had used said reference), as I feel it somewhat needlessly subtracts & distracts from the post topic content, but it’s not my site, and Brian can write what he wants.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. If the content of the HaD summary really does p*ss everyone off so much, then just scan the key words and click on through if it sounds interesting! It’s become my method, so much so that I hadn’t even noticed the “rhod” until it was s̶o̶ ̶p̶o̶l̶i̶t̶e̶l̶y̶ pointed out.
In fact, it appears a good deal of the people who visit this site now do so just to poke holes in the write-ups.
You’re not paying for it, so give it a rest. It’s getting kind of old.
Looks like strike out doesn’t work. For verbosity, I had intended to strike out the words “so politely”, with the intended effect of slathering them in sarcasm.
Damn these morons and their inability to accept a joke instead of trying to correct the spelling of an obvious movie reference..
Jeez..
What’s wrong with you? What you screamin’ for? Every 5 minutes there’s somethin’
“rhuby rhod” looks even better…
It would be very nice of you to send him (or, indeed, me) an erbium or neodymium rod, however I am not sure why you would do so. These are metallic elements; thus opaque. Not exactly useful for lasing.
Er:YAG and Nd:YAG rods *should* work in ben’s setup. Although it would be an infrared beam and thus not have the ‘cool’ factor.
That, and erbium doped rods are a cartoonish color of green. Like nothing else you’ll find on Earth.
Unless they are doped glasses or crystallised oxides perhaps?
Yep. erbium and neo-doped yittrium aluminum garnet. The YAG is colorless; the doping adds the color and does all the lazing stuff.
It’s the same way with rubies; Aluminum Oxide doesn’t laze. Add some chromium and it becomes a ruby and shoots lazers.
I’ve never seen a erbium rod IRL, but from the pics online they look similar to some types of uranium glass.
Except the ruby laser is just about invisible anyway, with a pulse width of a few ms and a wavelength of 691nm which is very NIR.
I gave up on the video. If you want to hold people’s attention with a science video, show the thing working at the start. That’ll hook those who care into watching the explanation.
It’s a frikkin laser, I want to see it working. (Shark head mounting optional.)
dude…
I got stuck in a heavy youtube cycle watching this guy’s videos. He also built an electron microscope and a pretty serious DIY LCD, and is really good at explaining things
Erbium Laser Rod – $39.95 (USA only):
http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/prodinfo.asp?number=G18403
Why a flash lamp and not laser diodes for the pump light? For historical accuracy? Rod lasers can be pumped much more efficiently by diodes. A flash lamp’s pump efficiency is about 7% at best. Diode pump efficiency can be 30%+.
Laser diodes need to have a wavelength matching the absorption spectrum of the rod being pumped, which can be a PITA and expensive to find (and sufficiently good alignment could be a bit fussy as well). Flash tubes are much easier to make work – even if you have to use xenon tubes instead of krypton, you can still make it work. Just less efficiently than the “optimal” coupling solution.
QUIVER, LADIES, QUIVER!