Homemade Q-Switch for Solid State Lasers

laserkids.sourceforge.net

42 points·segfaultbuserr··10 comments

At least it includes the helpful advice at the end about making sure to sacrifice the same eye to the laser gods whenever a sacrifice is required.

I guess this goes well with the unreasonably large Russian ruby laser rods that show up on ebay...

If possible, use the same eye of your lab assistant.

You can obtain a Q-Switched laser off ebay for around $600 by purchasing one of the cheap "tattoo removal" machines. Not a bad price I think. Q-Switching is cool, but isn't fast enough to produce the higher powers available from a mode-locked laser. I'm looking forward to when a DIYer can put together a mode-locked fiber laser at home. That opens up some crazy applications(i.e. particle accelerator).

Safety aside, I wonder if those cheap tattoo removers work (I have no tattoos, just curious).

Anyone tried one to remove tattoos?

Edit: clarified that I'm asking specifically about its performance as a tattoo remover.

Oh yeas, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BeTq99LqUo will cover your curiosity safely

Thanks, yeah. Looks like it would work. If you're light-skinned. Otherwise, it looks like a big burn hazard.

Wow.

What sort of particle accelerator are you talking about? Which particle, what energy?

I'm be happy to move some electrons above the nuclear binding energy(~6MeV). Not sure about specifics, but picojoule laser driven particle accelerators can generate MeV+ energies in some very small spaces.

Q-switched lasers is absolutely terrifying. I used to work with 10W YAG lasers and running normally, the laser is like a slightly stronger handheld laser you can buy online. With the laser Q-switched, the glow is so overwhelming bright that it seems like it'll burn both of your eyes away.

This is ace. Thanks for posting.

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