Questions about paper burning laser design

[JoeTB]

hello everyone im a 15 year old high school student and i am going to make a laser powerful enough that it can instanly set fire to paper... for this experiment i was planning on useing serveral store bought laser pointers and aiming them through a magnifieying glass to concentrate the beams to a small point... i was going to use green laser since there are more powerful but was wondering if i could just simply replace the L.E.D in the pointer with a violet one perhaps (more power)... if thats possible i would loveto know. and was also wandering if a white L.E.D would be even more powerful? Thx Ahead of time for all you helpful reply's

 

[rikie_rizza]

powerful non burning laser

Hi,
When i was about ur age, I have such a crazy idea like u do.
After I graduate my Master degree in optical physics, I realize that your request is a bit funny.

Dude, you can't merge all the laser beam using a mag glass to burn paper. The laser pointer is only class 3, it dont have enough power to burn anything... not even a dust. Inside the pointer is a Laser LED that is not commercially available except in a laboratory equipment store. Until now, people already made several laser color such as IR, Red, Green, Gamma, Xray, and in recent years... blue. Blue laser can be found in a blue-ray DVD player. So, it is all monochromatic or one color. White is multi color. There is a white laser, it is called a dye laser. its the only laser can emits any color in the visible color spectrum.

Non visible laser such as IR, UV or X-Ray are the most powerful laser ever build. To burn paper, use IR laser that you can buy in lab equip store for around usd1000.

Keep your wild imagination kid, that's the sign of creativity.

 

[spookysr]

Re: led burn paper

hello everyone im a 15 year old high school student and i am going to make a laser powerful enough that it can instanly set fire to paper... for this experiment i was planning on useing serveral store bought laser pointers and aiming them through a magnifieying glass to concentrate the beams to a small point... i was going to use green laser since there are more powerful but was wondering if i could just simply replace the L.E.D in the pointer with a violet one perhaps (more power)... if thats possible i would loveto know. and was also wandering if a white L.E.D would be even more powerful? Thx Ahead of time for all you helpful reply's

Won't work as the laser's output is only 5mW (or less). You'd need about maybe 1000 of them all aimed at the same spot for a cumulative effect. Also magnifying glass won't work as the laser is already focused at it's smallest point. May work with sun light though.

If you want to do this you'd have to purchase a powerful laser from China from dealextreme.com but you can't import them to USA. You could also go to kipkay.com and learn how to gut a computer DVD writer and use it's powerful laser diode to burn balloons, paper, etc.

All these projects could BLIND you or someone else if you don't practice safe laser handling! When dealing with these laser powers blinding someone is easy. Also NEVER aim them up at planes. A federal offense in USA!