Now, WTF do I do with it?

[Dr Mordrid]

Went to an estate sale and bought a large box of mixed electronic and optical parts, most all still wrapped/packaged. One item of particular interest: a brand new 40 watt DPSS (diode pumped solid state) class IV laser

Laser rifle, anyone?

[TransformX]

Remember that halloween vortex hole?

[degrub]

Love thy neighbor ???

Any stray dogs taking a dump in the yard ?

[cjolley]

Create a gun with a 22lr range finder and a laser main.
Put the 22 barrel on top and the laser "gun" bellow, just like a normal rifle.

[Tjalfe]

visible beam?

[Dr Mordrid]

808nm, high powered infrared. According to the paperwork the laser is NdYV04; Neodymium-Doped Yttrium Orthovanadate.

Typically 808nm can be turned into green using two crystals; one containing neodymium takes it up to 1064 nm and the other containing potassium, titanium & phosphorus doubles its frequency down to 532 nm, though with power loss - as if that's a problem at that level. This is how most green laser pointers work, but they're only a few milliwatts. Our laser vortex is only 20mw.

I have a straight 1-3 watt 1550nm diode I picked up a while ago and it can burn things rather well. This thing will require a lot more care and a cooling system.

[Elie]

Turn it into a phaser

[Dr Mordrid]

That'll need a cooling system that probably won't fit into the case unless I use it in pulsed mode. Normal ops is CW, which is why a liquid cooling system is built into the heat sink. Think a laser CNC.

Might work in pulsed mode with less cooling though, and it is rather small considering the power. Maybe one of those Wrath of Khan phasers where the small phaser I detaches from the phaser II handle/booster/powerpack. This feature goes all the way back to the TOS phaser pistols but was only shown rarely.

Dual mode

That or make a metal dual-turret for one of the new movies phasers - red for kill and blue for stun, which you could do with a dazzle green laser pulsing at a high rate like the military uses.

It's been done before.

[Elie]

I'd say...GO FOR IT!

[Evildead666]

Dang ! one of my bro's got me 5mW green laser pointer for Xmas, and I thought that was cool.
but a 40W one ? Insane.

Capacitors from throw-away cameras make a pretty good high power portable, rechargeable source...and should be pretty plentiful.
As long as you can find a photo dev place where they still develop film....

anyways, Go for it, and keep us up to date with the testing and results

[Dr Mordrid]

This laser doesn't need a capacitor to drive its pump lamps: a DPSS uses a high intensity diode array (19 in this one) to drive the crystal instead of flash lamps, so it's normally a continuous wave device - hence the need for active cooling through the heat sink. In pulse mode I'm hoping this requirement will be greatly reduced.

Found out they make an 80 watt version of this thing.