Giant Ruby Laser Fun

I finally decided to post some footage of my huge ruby laser. The rod is a very large 1/2" diameter by 6.1" crystal and I'm using a large helical lamp running at about 13kJ per shot for the video. Considering all of the exposed high voltage contacts, this laser is really scary to use...lol. I learned a ton by doing this project, and in fact when I first wanted to build a ruby laser I knew next to nothing about the physics of how a laser worked. I started by reading Solid State Laser Engineering by Koechner, and I learned a bunch about the theory of a laser, as well as designing a ruby laser.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwYuHqCwXFI