An Introduction On How Argon Ion Lasers Work

today on Zenith I'm an introduction into how air and water cooled argon ion lasers work let's start with my American laser corporation 60 X argon ion laser the friend gave me a while back which was originally part of a Xerox 9700 laser printer I'll be taking it apart and removing the toner inside first I removed the light sensor from the front of the laser this helps keep the laser stable during Operation the laser aperture has a reflector mounted at 45 degrees which reflects a small portion of light under the sensors argon ion lasers have optical components on each end of the laser to the high reflector and output coupler the output coupler is where the beam emits from though it reflects most of the light back into the laser to maintain stimulated emission the high reflector is on the back of a laser and reflects on the light that hits it these two optics reflect light back and forth both of these optics removed for cleaning they also needed to be taken off before the laser tube could be taken out between this is the laser tube itself and each end has a specially angle sheet of glass called a Brewster window these are found in most gas lasers as well their function is to polarize the light as it travels between reflectors and output coupler the laser tube also has four heat sinks to keep it cool during Operation which require a lot of air to be passed resent it's a laser tube and optics removed we can see just how much toner there is inside of the laser heads frame and on the electronics owner is not an easy thing to remove especially when it's been baked on from all the heat generated by the laser tube during years of operation the hardest things to clean on this laser head will be the wires small electronic components and the layers are built up on the bottom of the lasers frame believe their head has three circuit boards inside the smallest one connected to the light sensor another board with high-voltage capacitors and transformer for igniting the laser and finally the laser power supply an input and interface mounted on the side panel at this point many of the board's wires and electronic parts are a lot cleaner than they were before this was accomplished by using isopropyl alcohol and acetone however lots of cleaning still needs to be done after a few rounds of cleaning on the bottom of the laser heads frame using isopropyl alcohol acetone and ether as well this was how it looked which was a huge improvement who is still a lot of toner on the bottom at this point so it was time to let the cave sit and see at some of the tone of loosen up more in the meantime I started pinning away the tube cleaning the laser tube itself is a delicate procedure this is because the class ends and the your windows which are held in place by air pressure alone muted laser to low pressure argon is cybers this is a task of great care and even greater solvents for this we use crack Lois Lane which was used to remove the toner with minimal physical ports I've sought result brush was also used to remove toner there was on the tube mounting bracket metal housing and each sings afterwards and as a solvent wash was done to remove the last little bit and what remained trichloroethylene was highly effective at removing the toner on the laser tube and it also took off the toner on the lasers frame after a final cleaning of the frame and electronics everything looked fantastic I was quite happy with the end results as it was much better than expected here's the laser tube after cleaning and it looks beautiful this certainly was quite the effort but the results were well worth it now it's time to get it all back together and see if the laser works correctly these two parts that look like small air tanks are actually filled with a desiccant they attach onto my reflector and output coupler with hoses and keep the optics free from moisture they're being restored in a vacuum oven while the laser is assembled and tested putting the laser back together is relatively easy the most important thing is to ensure that everything is lined up and centered correctly so that the high reflector and alpha coupler slide onto the end the laser tube properly once the optics have in place back onto the lasers frame it can be tested to see if the tubing nights and if so the optics can then be aligned using the three large nuts on each side that lazes frames let's go over how an argon ion laser works so you understand what's happening a bit better an argon ion laser works a little like a vacuum tube there's a heated cathode that produces electrons to make a conductive path for electricity to flow in the Aragon's this energy excites the argon atoms causing photon emission from the argon in the ion channel the light is then reflected between a high reflector and output coupler as well as through the brewster windows which all make stimulated emission possible the argon is also circulated in the bore from cathode to anode due to chatter parisa's to keep the pressure constant in the laser tube gas returned paths are in the ceramic core that allow the argon to travel backwards catalyst side to test the argon ion laser two sources of power are used the first one is for the heated cathode which takes two point eight volts at around 20 amps to run the cathode a 25 amp is full power supply was used the second source power is for the Lisa tube which requires 96 volts at around 8 amps to drive the laser tube a 10 amp Cape Bulgaria was connected to a 40 amp full bridge rectifier and a large 400 volt capacitor to smooth out the DC from the rectifier [Music] the voltage for the laser tube was drawn up slowly to prevent excessive current draw from the capacitor overloading the full bridge rectifier there are also three heater elements in series with the laser to to shunt some of the current during ignition and operation use the power going to both the cathode and the laser tube is monitored as well to avoid possible damage when the proper voltage is reached and have tied igniting the tube Remy made for this high-voltage Odin coil was used however a laser did not want to ignite it after all the effort and cleaning the laser I felt like Odysseus hearing without gas ions are nothing we also tested the setup on this larger false argon ion laser and it did not ignite either though the tube may require higher voltage this also means my laser might not be bad and may still work on a full power supply more on that in a future video the next laser is a six watt water-cooled argon ion which is a lexical 95 there are assumed parts in this diagram an electromagnet water jacket gas reservoir and yuning prism here my fellow lasers Adam explains all the parts and how they work please put on your safety goggles and enjoy with your remaining high ion lasers are an interesting Beast the first thing they require is power and lots of it up through this cable we have three-phase 240 volts running through it at around 30 amps up here we also have water water coming in and water coming out all this column mates over here to the power supply unit as you can see here with the cover off the power supply and the laser are both water-cooled inside here you can see the path bank this is what limits and controls the current going into the laser tube as you can see here a large umbilical cable is coming of the power supply and heading off to the laser walk over here we can take a little closer look at the power supply you can see all the individual large transistors that are in there and these are all water-cooled on this plate over here here we have a transformer for line voltage correction so if the voltage is a little off depending on the lasers needs you can adjust the taps for doing so over here is the front panel of the power supply lots of various interlocks to make sure that everything is in check before the laser actually fires and basically you have some basic controls here current control we're controlling the current that goes into the tube and you can switch to light control which is actually an optical feedback which makes sure that the laser is not wandering all over the place if you want a particular amount of power output over here we can see the umbilical cord that comes up from the floor and then goes to the laser head this right here is the laser head if we come take a closer look at the whole entire arrangement over here under these jackets are the brewster windows that go across the board the laser tube the bore of the tube is a ceramic tube and then this black piece you see here the smaller tube is the water jacket that goes over the entire bore of the laser itself the water feeds into there and then go and streams across the tube there's also a magnet in this in this housing that basically focuses the plasma discharge in the tube to make sure it's not rubbing against the bore and burning this larger black jacket right here there's a metal tank in here which is basically a reservoir for additional argon that the laser will need during its life and that's housed inside there you can see over here this right here is the ignition transformer for lighting the discharge in the laser once the laser is lit because it's an ion laser it draws a massive amount of current and it's almost a dead short to the power supply which is the reason it creates so much heat and so much discharge this right here is the output coupler mirror where the laser emits from and then back over here is the high reflector of the laser as well now what's interesting about this is this laser also has a prism inside here with the high reflector so you can actually tune the individual wavelengths that come off of this laser so if we look this way we can actually see the 528 nanometer line coming out of the laser right now and if I turn this knob we can actually move it to a different wavelength so that right there would be the 514 line in in our gun and then as we go down we get all the other various wavelengths that are also in here and that can be tuned using the vertical knob to adjust the prism in which lines are coming out of it there's a nice 488 line this is the peak line in an argon ion laser very nice color beautiful cyan and then here's some other smaller blue lines as we go down the chain that's in the 450s and there's a couple other smaller lines at the bottom and I'll turn this back to a 488 line here somewhere I think I went too far there we go yeah can you go too far with lasers [Music] so making about a watt right now it's not tuned precisely and this is not full current but gives you an idea of what this laser can do many argon ion lasers are multi-line meaning they produce more than one wavelength of light it can be refracted through a prism as seen in the top illustration this concept is what allows a single line to be selected when a prism is put into the path of the laser beam between a high reflector and a laser tube the angle of refraction determines which line produces stimulated emission here we can see the various output powers of each wavelength of light not all of the wavelengths are equally as efficient in argon during lazing this laser would produce around 6 watts with multi-line optics with all the wavelengths emitted at the same time this is a wattage of each individual line and what percentage of power they make [Music] this was actually my first time singing argon ion laser with a wavelength selector on it I found it incredibly fascinating and you will get a good look inside the assembly on the next argon ion laser video that I produce this has certainly become another thing I look forward to doing more on in the future I'll also be talking more about the physics involved with ion lasers along with diagrams demonstrating the principles behind how an ion laser makes such an amazing beam and the reason why most dialed lasers don't look as nice as the output from a gas laser here we can see how the argon ion laser beam looks over a long distance as the colors are selected you can see how the beam shape changes as the tuning prism is moves to select different wavelengths one is perfectly aligned it produces a perfect spot [Music] I want to give a special thanks to Adam for help on its project learning more about our kanhaiya lasers has been a very enjoyable process for me and I hope you enjoyed this video and learned a lot about them as well if leaves if they're interesting to you I suggest picking up annihilator as they are a lot of fun and have excellent beam characteristics I'll be doing another video of argon ion lasers in the future so it's always stay tuned for more

Channel: Zenodilodon

Views: 3,040

Keywords: An introduction into Argon ion lasers, Argon ion laser, How does an ion laser work, Inside an argon ion laser, Argon, ion, Laser, Americain Laser 60x, Lexel, Gas laser, Ion laser cleaning, Parts in an ion laser

Id: jjhLtYLkajo

Length: 15min 49sec (949 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 30 2020