Giant Invisible Er:YAG Laser!!!!

This is one of those lasers that will kill you INSTANTLY if you mishandle it!!! This is a flashlamp pumped Er3+ doped Yttrium Aluminum Garnet laser (Er:YAG). This laser is pulsed in nature due to its pumping method, with peaks to 3000W and average output power around 20W. Lasers of this type require a high voltage power supply and massive capacitors, so careful attention must be placed on taking all necessary precautions to prevent IDS (Instant Death Syndrome)!!!

Believe it or not I have had this system sitting around for years now, but only had it running fairly recently. When I bought the head and power supply, I had no controller to run the PSU. I finally got around to building a controller for the unit but I could not get the system to fire up. I ended up taking it to my genius friend Wilson, a senior at my university studying aviation mechanics, who found a problem in the flashlamp trigger circuit and fixed it up for me. You'll likely see more of Wilson in my upcoming videos...we work on a lot of cool stuff together.

Flashlamp pumped solid state lasers like this one are a real hallmark in the history of lasers. Not only were they the first kind of laser ever built, but they still find applications in many different fields! They work on the principle of dumping a metric ****LOAD of light into a selectively doped crystal via a massive flashlamp, and then allowing the crystal to bleed out its energy stored in electron energy levels by stimulated emission. I have some more projects in mind involving solid state lasers, so if all goes well you'll be seeing more of stuff like this in my upcoming videos.

Come to http://www.laserpointerforums.com to learn more about building and buying lasers!