Another iteration of a Nitrogen laser and my best performer.”Continue reading” for more details of this laser.

Ideal shaping of the laser channel electrodes has been investigated with various profiles (Chang, Rogowski etc) to give a uniform discharge. Other amateur experimenters such as Ralphoo have used tubing for the laser channel electrodes. I thought I would try too. Aiming for a larger-than-I-thought-reasonable size, I used 5 mm round thoriated tungsten rods. These are very finely finished. No joy with them until they were very firmly pressed down then they really shone and were much better than a beam from the plain aluminium angle I had used before on my test bed laser (Mark 2).
Interestingly, for this nitrogen laser 4, I could use a much broader gap over 1mm and the beam was very divergent up to about 6 mm only 10cm from the end. One advantage of the rods is that the spark is 3.5 mm above the dielectric.

My favourite related web pages for Nitrogen lasers are:
Joshua Dickerson who enlightened me (pun intended) in getting this laser going.
Mark Csele Extensive descriptions and practical info from a Professor in optics.
Milan Karakas Home made N2 and dye lasers
Renato Salles Home made N2 and dye lasers
Jon Singer N2 and dye lasers

Related pages

  Nitrogen laser 3

External links

Try something else

Photo Date: 2004