Welcome to W's Laser-Projects page !

I was reviving my laser hobby... as I do feel an urge to do something practical and swing the soldering iron once in a while, or just contemplate upon the beauty of a beam of coherent light!
This is mainly for the fun of tinkering with electronics and building stuff, but I do a bit of holography as well, in order to have a good use of my lasers. And no, I don't have any commercial interests.

Below I have set up some notes about my laser-related projects; I wish them to be helpful to other laser enthusiasts, much like I appreciated detailed help from many others. A lot of it is outdated by now and may look a bit naive with hindsight.

I also run a blog, for discussions and announcements.

Recents:

7-2022: Reviving a Melles Griot 56CRH Diode Laser Module
6-2022: Reviving a New Focus Vortex Series TLB 7000 Extended Cavity Laser
3-2022: New diode SLM tests, esp. promising: Ushio HL63643DG , also ECDL version added, works extremely well!
Also, the write-up of ECDL design has been updated and improved.
2-2022: Preliminary investigations of Pico projector "White Light Engine"
Update 1-2022: high precision, low noise digital laser diode controller desktop system
Update 2-2022: investigations of the Osram PL530 530nm optically pumped semiconductor laser (OPSL), incl driver board

Older stuff:

• Gallery of holograms (outdated)


• Single mode diode lasers for holography 

Laser design studies:
• Design requirements for single mode diode lasers (2011, somewhat outdated)
• Ongoing development of highly stable diode drivers and TEC controllers for diode holography
• Arduino-based high precision TEC controller for laser diode holography (2017)
• General remarks on single mode ECDL lasers (revamped 2022)

Diode tests (ongoing but slow):
• Detailed mode analysis of various popular consumer-type laser diodes, incl summary (updated 2022)
• Tests of various diodes in ECDL setups (updated 2022)


• Laser spectrum analysis with regard to coherence length
  A number of lasers, like Coherent Compass and Sapphire, Lexel 88, etc, is tested .
  Home-build instrumentation:
• Fabry-Perot scanning interferometer - checking longitudinal mode structure of various lasers (2009)
• Optical spectrum analyzer with CCD sensor readout and 0.006nm resolution (2006)


• Some major and/or more interesting projects
  
  • Converting the OEM Lexel 88 argon laser head for holography (2004)
    Home-built ion laser 6KW switchmode power supply, old linearly regulated version (2005)
  • Home brew controller for the Coherent Compass 315M100 DPSS laser head, with USB computer interface
    Details: laser diode driver, TEC controllers, digital USB interface, measurements
  • Reprogramming the Newport 835 power meter for data from 818-series sensor calibration modules (2009)
  • Remarks about the Burleigh Wavemeter Jr WA-2000/2500, incl LabVIEW driver (2011)
  • Revitalizing the Coherent Sapphire 488-20 (2011)
  • High precision, low noise digital laser diode controller desktop system (2021)
  • Osram PL530 530nm optically pumped semiconductor laser (OPSL), incl driver board (2021)


• Some utilities, schematics, diagrams, tests and other minor projects
  • My holography technical setup (2005,outdated)
  • Generate interactively ready-to-use exposure time diagrams for holography, for cheap integrated light sensors
    and common films (nonoperational..) (2005)
  • Info on monolithic light sensors for holography use, incl. an easy-to-build exposure meter (2005)
  • Simple precision transimpedance amplifier for use with Newport 818-series detectors (2010)
  • Remarks on the SDL-800 laser diode/TEC controller; incl. modifications for avoiding temperature oscillations and running blue diodes such as the 1W Nichia (2010)
  • Remarks about the Rofin-Sinar RSO 6000 scanning monochromator/optical spectrum analyzer (2009)
  • Cooling water interlock circuit using flow wheel
  • Various film sizes compared to various collimation mirror sizes, for normal and Brewster angle illumination
  • Simple PWM peltier driver for cooling high power laser diodes (2009)
  • Super simple PWM peltier driver for low power laser diodes (2010)
  • Converting a 780nm single mode extended cavity (ECDL) laser to visible red (2010)
  • Wideband, low noise photodiode amplifier (2009)
  • Noise detector for monitoring mode jumps (2010)
  • Precision instrumentation (2011)
  • Science-Surplus spectrometer (2012)
  • The Low Noise Zener Diode 2DW23x (2017) 
  • Low Noise Amplifiers and Voltage References(2017)
  • Remarks on Aliexpress low-noise linear regulator boards based on LT3045 (2021)
  
  
• Some prehistoric older lasers  
• Memories of old times as a radio amateur...

July 2022