Scientific American used to run a column called "The Amateur Scientist" in the mid 1970s, when C.L. Stong edited it, the column featured several DIY lasers, there was a UV laser and a CO2 laser if I recall correctly.
The Amateur Scientist columns have been scanned onto a CD set available from the Society for Amateur Science (SAS http://www.sas.org ) who are run by the last editor of the Amateur science column.
Depends on what you mean by "home made". If you're willing to use a laser diode, as commercial laser pointers do, it's fairly easy and there are instructables already posted which scavenge the laser diodes from broken consumer equipment. (Or you can just buy one.)
If you mean you want to make the actual laser itself -- How much time and effort do you want to put into this? It's certainly possible, but it's a much bigger project.
Watch Bang Goes The Theory. It features an episode with a homemade laser which is shown step by step.
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Cute penguin picture :) :)
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Yes but cost and effort not worth it - you can buy a laser pointer for a small amount these days.
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Yeah, but what can you cut with that ;-)
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Scientific American used to run a column called "The Amateur Scientist" in the mid 1970s, when C.L. Stong edited it, the column featured several DIY lasers, there was a UV laser and a CO2 laser if I recall correctly.
The Amateur Scientist columns have been scanned onto a CD set available from the Society for Amateur Science (SAS http://www.sas.org ) who are run by the last editor of the Amateur science column.
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Depends on what you mean by "home made". If you're willing to use a laser diode, as commercial laser pointers do, it's fairly easy and there are instructables already posted which scavenge the laser diodes from broken consumer equipment. (Or you can just buy one.) If you mean you want to make the actual laser itself -- How much time and effort do you want to put into this? It's certainly possible, but it's a much bigger project.
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