🚀 go-pugleaf

Info on building lasers (CO2, HeNe, N2, dye, others) is available in a 
Scientific American reprint book "Light and Its Uses: Making and using 
lasers, holograms, interferometers, and instruments of dispersion" by
Jearl Walker, published by W.H.Freeman & Co.

Some of the lasers described:

HeNe: Your basic low-power red laser.
Argon: Multiple colors.
Dye: Tune thru a range of colors.
CO2: Infrared output of around 8 watts (a serious power that "quickly chars
     wood")
Diode: How to use diode lasers (this field has improved since this article)
N2: ~75 kilowatt ultraviolet output in 10-nanosecond pulses.

Side note: air-based lasers can be built. There's enough nitrogen in air to
produce a lasing action. I'm still kicking myself for not
taking up Peter Dowben (Syracuse University physics professor)'s offer to
help me build one out of, as he put it, $0.25 in materials.


--
  __________/ ctdonath@rodan.acs.syr.edu  Carl T Donath \________________
 / Why do people assume that this is the first time things have ever     \
/ been this way and things will stay this way forever?                    \