I`ll soon be getting yet another 50mw laser to my "collection", is there anyway of converging these beams into one single beam with the combined power of all used:confused:

If you wanted to focus all the lasers on a certain point you could do that, although that's kinda obvious because you just point all the lasers at the point!

 

If you had a fibre optic cable which was thick at one end and thinner at the other then you could feed all of the lasers into the thick end and they'd all come out the thinner end.

 

Or use something like this:

http://www.powertechnology.com/dbc.asp

the 1`st idea is highly impractical over distance.

 

the second idea doesn`t work as the impurities "scramble the beam coherance and won`t exit beyond more than a few mm (at least the methods of it I`ve tried).

 

now the Third Option`s the kinda thing I`m talking about

anyone know how they`re made?

I can't help much, but if you look here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarizer#Beam-splitting_polarizers

then you can read about how polarizing beamsplitters work. On the original site it said the Beam Combiner worked because they could "employ a polarizing beamsplitter in a reverse configuration".

Hmmm... Interesting ref!

 

I can see how that could be made to work in reverse, I`ve done a few experiments in the past with polarised film and beam spliting before, of course accurate alignment will be an issue (Brewset angle), but losses are to be expected anyway on a bench test/project, it would just be nice to see the thing work, however crudely

 

lol, I actualy considered using a beam Spreader lens in reverse to see if that would work, so this idea can`t be all THAT Wacky

Tell us how it goes.

 

And where did you get your new 50mW laser from?

eBay again, cost me £39 total, that includes all the optics, psu and postage