Flowtubes & Filter Flowtubes for Lamp Pumped Laser Heads
OVERVIEW
Flowtubes and Filter Flowtubes are machined out of a block or a rod of carefully selected materials, un-doped or doped with the appropriate rare earth or metal ions, depending on the filtering results we are looking after and on the state of the available doping/filtering optical materials technology.
From its skilled alignment during the deep-boring to produce the holes that shall house the rods and lamps, till its polishing stage, the highest parallelism and perpendicularity tolerances must be observed in order to achieve an efficiently operating element. The polished exterior cylindrical surface, is characteristic of Flowtubes and Filter Flowtubes. Upon request we can measure and control the transmission characteristics of the produced elements using Zeiss spectrophotometer.
In case of Samarium and Europium doped Glass, because this material is relatively fragile, we apply chemical hardening of its surface by ion exchange following strict instructions of glass manufacturer Company.
SPECIFICATION
- Material: Fused Silica, UV Fused Silica, Zerodur, Duran, Doped Glass
- Type Of Ceramic: Not Applicable
- Component Type: Flowtubes
- Max Length: 120 mm
- Inside Hole Diameter: 6 - 20 mm
- Surface Quality (Scratch-Dig): 60-40
- Glass Dopnat Material: Samarium, Cerium, Europium
Applications
Flowtubes and Filter Flowtubes combine and integrate in one solid optical element attributes and technical characteristics necessary to perform simultaneously the following functions:
(a) cooling duct for both lamp(s) and laser rod(s);
(b) filtering-absorbing undesired UV radiation, thus protecting the rod from long term solarization;
(c) attenuating “lateral depumping” effects i.e. energy losses caused by the rod’s side emission, by absorbing it and preventing its back-reflection.
Flowtubes satisfy only the first of the above functions while Filter Flowtubes may satisfy the first two or all three of them. This last category is of increasing interest for Nd:YAG Q-Switched lasers. For this case, Samarium doped Glass is the material of choice because it attenuates lateral depumping effects, thus avoiding super luminescence phenomena and absorbing undesired UV radiation.
Cerium Glass and Europium Quartz Glass are also interesting cladding materials, because these materials absorbs undesired UV radiation and additionally re-emits this energy at useful wavelengths.
For Flowtubes, Duran and Quartz Glass are the materials of choice, while YAG and Sapphire can also be used for very harsh conditions.