A piece of glass, some bits of tinfoil, a sheet of plastic, a couple of razor blades, and a few assorted bits and bobs are all it takes to build this TEA nitrogen laser. Oh, and a 5,000-volt flyback supply with enough amperage to stop your heart. You’ll need that too.
Seriously, if you choose to follow [MultiverseCurator] ‘s example and build this laser, you’ll want to take the proper precautions. A transversely excited atmospheric laser is simple in concept, but there are plenty of ways for them to go wrong. Unlike the gas lasers used in laser cutters, there’s no enclosed resonator cavity or mirrors. Rather, the excitation takes place across a narrow gap between two electrodes, using atmospheric nitrogen as the lasing medium. This results in hard UV emissions, which means you can’t see them with the naked eye. Add to that the spark gap creating extremely loud discharges as the laser operates, and hazards abound. Proceed with caution.
Construction starts with a flat glass plate and a pair of large capacitors made from aluminum foil plates separated by a plastic dielectric. The razor blades are connected across the capacitors, separated by a narrow gap, with an inductor made from magnet wire in parallel. A spark gap made from nuts and bolts goes in series, and the whole assembly gets connected to a high-voltage power supply — [Multiverse] used a ZVS driver and a CRT flyback transformer with an eight-megohm resistor in series. The video below has all the build details.
It’ll take a little fiddling to get it lasing, and you’ll need something phosphorescent to see the UV light — a scrap of copy paper should do. But the results are pretty amazing for something made from scrap. If you want to take the design to the next level, you’ll want to check out [Les Wright]’s TEA laser build.
I wonder if they are x-ray emitters ?
This looks like a small version of a nitrogen laser from “Scientific American” Amateur Scientist column from the ’70s, except that needed pure nitrogen at low pressure. (and had a huge surface area with lethal voltage)
June 1974
I recall the the park gap was positioned at one end of the edge in order to get a wave of discharge. I still have some sheets of double-sided PCB from an unfinished attempt at the SA project. One could use a voltage multiplier and Marx generator stack instead of the flyback, and even run off a battery. I just takes longer to charge.
Looks like x-ray emissions from this type of laser are possible (loads of Google results, not smart enough to give a proper answer) from this type of laser:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0375960173907640
The X-rays emitted by a nitrogen laser, particularly when operated in a vacuum, can be dangerous due to their ionizing nature. Here are some key points regarding the potential dangers:
☢ Ionizing Radiation: X-rays are a form of ionizing radiation, which means they have enough energy to remove tightly bound electrons from atoms, potentially causing cellular damage and increasing the risk of cancer.
☢ Health Risks: Exposure to laser X-rays can lead to acute effects (such as radiation burns) and long-term effects (such as an increased risk of cancer). The severity of the risk depends on the dose and duration of exposure.
☢ Distance and Shielding: The intensity of X-ray exposure decreases with distance from the source. Proper shielding (such as lead barriers) is essential to protect against X-ray exposure in environments where nitrogen lasers are used.
☢ Regulatory Guidelines: There are strict guidelines and regulations regarding the use of X-ray laser emitting devices. These guidelines typically include safety protocols, monitoring of exposure levels, and the use of personal protective equipment (PPE).
☢ Training and Safety Protocols: Anyone working with nitrogen lasers should be trained in radiation safety and follow established protocols to minimize exposure.
In summary, nitrogen lasers emit X-rays that pose significant health risks, proper safety measures, training, and regulatory equipment can help mitigate these dangers. If you are working with such lasers, it is crucial to adhere to safety guidelines and regulations to protect yourself and others from potential harm.
Please don’t pretend that copying and pasting from a LLM is in any way helpful or contributes to the conversation.
Good call, all of my deepfake detectors dinged on this post, including my own eyeballs.
So ? Are there any inaccuracies in the post ? If so, please cite what is in error (and no, don’t worry, Nomad is not nearby).
How is a nitrogen laser operated in a vacuum?
The ‘so’ is those results are inherently inaccurate and should be distrusted from the go until they are checked from beginning to end. Posting them is less helpful than saying ‘ I heard once that…’ because at least that has a built in disclaimer on the level of authority one should give the facts presented (virtually none). At best LLM results require someone to individually research each claim made to give them any weight at all.
95% of the post is irrelevant general information on the dangers of x-Rays. The only potentially userul addition to the discussion is the statement that tea lasers emit x-rays, but whether that is actually true is unverifiable without references and we all know that LLM’s make up all kinds of things.
Too right. LOL
The voltage here is too low for interesting x-rays. And with the air gap, the electrons will not have enough energy when they reach the other side of the gap and hit the steel.
If I wanted to know what a bullshit machine had to say about the topic, I’d go ask it myself. I’m here to read comments from people who actually have knowledge of the topic.
Also (putting aside arguments about whether the output of LLMs is itself plagiarised) I think copy & pasting the output of an LLM without indicating where you got it is definitely plagiarism.
It sounds like the x-rays in your link were generated by the target, not the laser itself, which were a CO2 lasers, not nitrogen. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to the fulltext
I remember TEA lasers! One of the early reprap research branches was using a TEA UV laser created by slightly spaced aluminium angle sections, xy-scanned with a mirror for SLA resin curing. FDM proved far more practical.
IIRC the old crt (television) display tubes had electrons at a dozen or so kV hitting metal-ion phosphors, and were required to have leaded glass to reduce x ray emission. The lasers described usually use an old crt transformer to charge the capacitor plates – so there is a similar voltage – and some have copper electrodes as well. Granted there is nitrogen in the discharge gap but it would be worth checking for bursts of xrays I think.
X-rays? Lol last thing you ought to be worried about, and at 5kv? Maybe double check. The spark gaps and dielectric failure are crowd pleasers. Noise, UV, ozone, tiny shrapnel, it’s all good fun.
Built a few of these years ago, they definitely work. Discharge needs to be extremely fast, like a couple nanosecond, or it doesn’t work. Physics. Peak powers can be mind boggling too.
Next up, running them at atmosphere makes lots of hot arcs, but obviously it kinda works. Running them “in a vacuum” means sealing the discharge chamber and pumping it down a little so the discharge is more of a glow discharge. This doesn’t tear up the electrodes either. There’s something else about pre-ionization that helps, but I never tried it. And flowing pure nitrogen is extra bonus power. Make sure the windows where the beam exits are very pure, thin glass or better yet quartz, because the UV can be significantly attenuated. You CAN put a mirror at the back of the cavity to get double power, but because of the physics, its superluminous with high gain and doesn’t require multiple passes through the gain medium. The mirror just redirects the light that falls out the ass-end. They only ever operate in pulsed mode because again physics.
I encourage those so inclined and able to execute safely to try a pulsed N2 laser. See: “Sam’s Laser FAQ” and the other resources mentioned in the comments. Bonus points if you can get a lens that’s UV transparent and cause the air to break down at the focal point.
Have fun, be safe.
The 5 kV and 8 Mohm sounds like you don’t necessarily need a “supply with enough amperage to stop your heart”. Possibly you could manage with a CFL inverter and a voltage multiplier circuit.
At 5 KV, as little as 100mA or lower can cause cardiac arrest.
“Amperage”? We have a proper technical term for that. It’s called current. There is never any reason to use the word amperage.
Well, we do talk about voltage but not ohmage, faradage or henryage.
Earl Grey. Hot. Lasing hot.