Evolution of DPSS Lasers From Gas Lasers

DPSS Lasers

Since early developments in the 1960's, lasers have gone through a number of transformations using different types of technology. The previous generation of lasers were bulky and fragile gas lasers such as ion lasers. The current generation of lasers are diode pumped solid state lasers or DPSS for short.

Diode-pumped solid-state (DPSS) lasers are solid-state lasers made by pumping a solid gain medium, for example, a ruby or a neodymium-doped YAG crystal, with a laser diode.

The most common DPSS laser in use is the 532 nm wavelength green laser pointer The green light from the green laser pointer is generated by a process called frequency doubling. The beam typically originates as a 808nm beam from an infrared A1GaAs laser diode. This beam then pumps a crystal made of neodymium-doped vanadate or Nd:YAG to produce a deeper infrared beam with a wavelength of 1064nm.

The last part of the process is passing the 1064nm beam into a KTP (potassium titanyl phosphate) crystal which acts as a frequency doubler and halves the wavelength of the beam to green 532nm laser beam.

The Viper laser pointer, the Hulk portable laser and the other lasers from Dragonlasers are DPSS lasers and use the same principle of pumping a crystal with a laser diode to produce a laser beam.

Advantages of DPSS lasers

DPSS lasers have a number of important over the older gas lasers

They are solid state with no fragile gas filled tube which requires the gas pressure to be maintained correctly for optimal performance.

· Durability: DPSS lasers are more rugged than the typical gas lasers that use a gas filled tube with precise pressure requirements.

· Resonators: DPSS lasers not require the complex resonator structures found in gas lasers.

· Optics: The optics in DPSS lasers are much smaller than the optics in gas lasers. This allows the optics of DPSS lasers to be adjusted in the factory, an adjustment that will normally last the life of the laser. The optics in gas lasers on the other hand need adjustment prior to each use.

· Size: DPSS lasers are much more compact that gas lasers.

· Efficiency: A typical gas laser will output about 2-3% of its electrical input as light. The other 97-98% electrical input will be lost as heat. One reason why gas lasers typically need water cooling. DPSS lasers are much more efficient and output 25-30% of their electrical input as light.

Article is courtesy of Dragonlasers - No 1 lasers, laser pointer and green laser online store

Frank from Dragonlasers at http://www.dragonlasers.com

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