Can quartz be used in lasers?

Question

Also, how can you build your own laser?

Answer 1

Probably. But you have to dope it with the right stuff. It's not the quartz that would lase but the dopant atoms. In any case natural quartz is not a suitable material and because it is hard to make optically pure but properly doped synthetic quartz crystals, I do not know about any practical laser designs using it. There are much better materials for solid state applications.

But with lasers it is like with planes... given a powerful enough pump source EVERYTHING lases... even a barn door... just like everything "flies" if you strap a jet engine to it... even a barn door.

There are very few lasers you could successfully build at home from scratch. Your best bet is probably a nitrogen laser.

OTOH there are very few laser you couldn't build at home from commercial optical parts. The problem is that you would need years of education and thousands (and sometimes millions) of dollars worth of equipment. None of which, I have to assume, you have.

If you want to experiment with a laser, get a laser pointer or a small (1-10mW) HeNe laser. They are cheap to reasonably cheap and they won't hurt you (as long as you are careful). The HeNe laser is a real laser... you can do a lot of real experiments with it. The diode laser in a laser pointer has a few restrictions.

I would not encourage you to get a power laser like the IR laser arrays for pumping and cutting and welding, even if you can get a cheap one. They are seriously dangerous and unless you have a lot of experience, you can get hurt for life. With any power laser you have exactly two failed experiments called "left eye" and "right eye".

Good luck!

Answer 2

I remember back in 1970 or 71 Scientific American had an article explaining how to build an organic dye laser. It was resonably simple. You could check there.

Answer 3

yes