argon ion laser

are argon ion lasers any good?? what are the pro`s and cons of argon ion?.
i`v seen on one ebay and i dont know if I sould buy it or not as it looks quite big. its rated at about 20mw in the 488nm area but i`v been told that argon ion can lase on many frequencies wich would be good
oh and welcom back cpf i`v been lost without you lol
cheers
al.

Argon ion lasers are large, very *HEAVY* critters that require a lot of power (prepare for a 20mW unit to draw close to 16 amps on a 120 volts AC circuit); they also have cooling fans that make a noise like a soft vacuum cleaner motor. After extended use (greater than 20 or 30 minutes), they can heat a small, unventilated room to temperatures beyond what most would connsider "comfortable".

Argon ion lasers come in four primary flavours: single line single mode, single line multimode, multiline single mode, and multiline multimode.

I have a single line single mode unit; outputting 18.4912mW at 488nm in the blue-green region of the spectrum, with a TEM00 beam. And yes, the beast is fairly noisy and consumes ~16 amps of power.

If you want an argon laser that lases at multiple wavelengths simultaneously, look for a multiline version. The visible laser lines most commonly available in an argon ion multiline laser are:

457.9nm
476.5nm
488.0nm
514.5nm
528.7nm

To seperate the beams from a multiline laser, I believe all you will need is a glass prism.


Here is an illustration showing a few laser transverse electromagnetic modes - the single mode laser produces a TEM00 beam which is shown on the left here.

Hope you found this to be at least somewhat helpful.

Here are some pics of my argon and hene lasers doing some lumia projections on the inside of my garage door. The argon is of the multi line version. Argon laser is a 60X doing about 180mw when cranked all the way up, and the hene is doing about 35mw. These are my first picture posts so here goes.

wow. cool piks.. this laser is going for about £100 english pounds and its rated at about 20mw so do you think its worth the money??.
its going to be my first blue laser and i`m very interested but i`d like a few more opinions..
thanks
al.

I had the same laser craig is speaking of. Spectra Physics 161b... I recently traded it for a set of scanners and a DAC bundle.

They are big, loud, hungry, and fairly inexpensive to buy compared to the other blue, dpss. I bought a dpss recently cause it is higher powered and blankable, can be turned on and off by electrical signales for laser shows...

Here's a thread about my dpss...

Before deciding you need to think about what you want to do with it. Are you just playing around or are you about to start in on a laser show obsession... The argon is good for just playing around. If you really want to build your own projector I'd save a little more and get a dpss. I spent $375 shipped on my old argon, $575 on my dpss. Technically I got a much better deal on the dpss. I think the argon drove my power bill up $50/month. I assume the dpss uses a fraction of that amount of power. The argon WILL heat up a small or even medium sized room in about 30 minutes to an hour. :sweat:

For your 100 pounds, I'd say wait and try to get a dpss. There are buy it nows on eBay that you can get a 30mW dpss for around $700 USD. I'm sure you can find an auction and get a better deal. I got mine from extremelasers. Some people will not buy from there because some of their greens were not as powerful as they were rated. My blue is very strong and I am bery happy. I also got a green from there but I am not sure if it was 100mW or not. I also killed it yesterday.