Beam combining 2x CO2 laser beams

I am looking at the concept of combining 2x lower-cost CO2 laser tubes to make one beam.

I have experience with the Universal Laser dual-CO2 setup. You might think the spot size would suffer from alignment inaccuracies, but that's not the case at all.

Anyhow, if one were to make a laser cutter with 2x CO2 lasers, is there a cheap Chinese component to combine them? See, I looked on eBay for "Beam Combiner" for an hour or so and they all seem to be the ones that combine the red-dot indicator with the CO2 beam- which is not helpful to me. I need to combine 2x CO2 beams (10600nm).

Anybody got a source for the component?

Hello,
We produced laser machien with combinng laser tube before for our client.
Are you still looking for helpe now?

If yes,please feel free to contact us. We have been engaged in CO2 laser engraving cutting machine for more than 6 years.
and get CE & FDA certificate.

So, if any help you need, please contact with me.

My Skype: sukelaser5
Hotmail: [email protected]
​Website: www.sukelaser.com
​Fax:86-531-85762139

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Hello,
We produced laser machien with combinng laser tube before for our client.
Are you still looking for helpe now?

If yes,please feel free to contact us. We have been engaged in CO2 laser engraving cutting machine for more than 6 years.
and get CE & FDA certificate.

So, if any help you need, please contact with me.

My Skype: sukelaser5
Hotmail: [email protected]
​Website: www.sukelaser.com
​Fax:86-531-85762139

I have a laser with two tubes. I do not think you will find combining mirror on ebay. It is quite expensive. All it does is it allows one beam to pass thought it and the other to reflect from it. Mine is in rectangular shape and is quite big. I believe this type of mirror referred as a Brewster window and that's what you should be looking for.

The other thing is a beam polarization. You won't get the maximum output of two tubes combined if they are not polarized. I saw how its done when my laser was setup. You need a power meter to measure when they are polarized. It is achieved by rotating one tube until the maximum output is reached. I believe the second tube should be rotated 90 degrees to the first one.

we're also very interested in the "Beam Combiner" to combine 2xco2 beams,
however, it's difficult to fine a good quality one.

Looking at the problem, I couldn't find any solution where you can combine beams that "allows one beam to pass thought it and the other to reflect from it".

I saw where a prism can be used to combine beams of different wavelengths because the refraction angle varies by wavelength, so by placing the beams at the proper angles they refract into a single colinear beam- but it can't be done with 2 lasers of the same wavelength.

Rather, what I saw was a description of 2 beams bearing linear polarization, but 90 deg off one another. A Brewster window does refract S- and P- polarizations differently so it can be used to combine linear-polarized beams.

What I'm seeing as a difficulty is a description that all these glass direct-excitation tubes are random polarization output, whereas the RF metal-tube lasers (Synrad, etc) DO have the necessary polarization. Which would explain how they do it with metal-RF tubes, but unfortunately it's based on components that are impossible to source cheaply.

2 or 3 tubes beam combining machines need special tubes, mirrors and structure. Some chinese manufacturers including us produce this kind of machines, but frankly speaking, the machines are usually sold only in China, because for oversea selling, it is not convient for maintenance and repairment.

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Originally Posted by Gweikelasers

2 or 3 tubes beam combining machines need special tubes, mirrors and structure. Some chinese manufacturers including us produce this kind of machines, but frankly speaking, the machines are usually sold only in China, because for oversea selling, it is not convient for maintenance and repairment.

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Soooo not helpful. You give no info on how it works, say it's too expensive to do and so you don't sell to anyone outside China. Yeah, sure.

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Originally Posted by ozstockman

The other thing is a beam polarization. You won't get the maximum output of two tubes combined if they are not polarized. I saw how its done when my laser was setup. You need a power meter to measure when they are polarized. It is achieved by rotating one tube until the maximum output is reached. I believe the second tube should be rotated 90 degrees to the first one.

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Lower-cost CO2 laser tubes are RANDOM polarised. That means they are NOT polarized.

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Originally Posted by MechanoMan

Soooo not helpful. You give no info on how it works, say it's too expensive to do and so you don't sell to anyone outside China. Yeah, sure.

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Look inside Synrad`s 48-5 laser. It consists of 2 optically combined 48-2 tubes.