Visible 1064nm green laser beam in air without scattering material

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Integral
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A few months back there was a thread with a pic of a visible beam being emitted by a green laser pointer. There was some discussion as to whether or not it was a photochop. Here is a pic I took of "my" green beam laser. I am not at liberty to say a lot about this laser, but it is 1064nm and on the order of 10W beam power.

http://home.comcast.net/~Integral50/Laser/greenbeam.JPG

The laser is on the right, to the left is a power meter, the green light illuminating the laser is diffuse scattering from the power meter. In the for ground is a pin diode being used to monitor the laser pulses.

Yes the green streak across the center is the beam. I did not use any smoke or beam detection material, this is just air.
 
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I don't know much about lasers but if green light is around 500nm and your laser is 1064, why does it appear green?
 
Oh my god you are correct. 1064 is the fundamental our beam is 532nm! Silly mistake on my part. :blushing:
 
dav2008 said:
I don't know much about lasers but if green light is around 500nm and your laser is 1064, why does it appear green?
I would think 1064 nm would be well out of the visible range. :confused:

Bleh...nevermind...I see that Integral answered while I was typing. :rolleyes:
 
I am not at liberty to say a lot about this laser, but it is 1064nm and on the order of 10W beam power.

I hope you don't get in trouble about posting a picture of it. Did your lab approve the use of your photo? I know where I work, photographs are prohibited (You will be terminated if you violate this rule). You have to get it cleared before it's allowed to see the light of day outside the company grounds. Even if its a photo of something trivial like a soda machine.
 
Integral said:
10W beam power.
10 watts!
and I thought this was powerful,
http://www.wickedlasers.com/videos/laser-90-pop.wmv"

"No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die"
 
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My 1/2-W frequency-doubled laser pointer does the same thing - and it fits in the palm of my hand! Then it overheated and burned my thumb. Oh well.
 
http://www.thinkgeek.com/ sells a green laser pointer (I have one...very cool) with lots of neat photos submitted by owners showing the beam. The green light is easily visible and readily illuminates any particles in the air. Hardly any need to photoshop the image.
 
cyrusabdollahi said:
I hope you don't get in trouble about posting a picture of it. Did your lab approve the use of your photo? I know where I work, photographs are prohibited (You will be terminated if you violate this rule). You have to get it cleared before it's allowed to see the light of day outside the company grounds. Even if its a photo of something trivial like a soda machine.
Yes, Cyrus, I disscussed this with the engineer before posting.
 
Still a cool picture though, got any more of the experiment you can share? Or anything about the experiment itself that does not include the specifics of the laser?

One guy at work was using a laser to measure deflections caused by impluses on a thin metal flexure for a micro propulsion. It was an interferometer setup, but that does not appear to be what your laser is doing.

I was just asking because one time I almost made that mistake myself :frown:.
 
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I was simply fingerprinting laser performance. Power, pulse width, beam profile, power stability etc. Just baseline performance sort of stuff, nothing exciting.
 
I would imagine it's a Nd:YAG, Nd:YVO4 laser.

10W beam power is pretty impressive. Like a V10.