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Dear Tim,

Combining a few lasers is not difficult as you suggest - a lot of people are
doing this for custom built systems - although it requires some patience to
get a good collinear alignment of the laser beams. If you can do it on a
breadboard or optical table, all you need are some standard optical
components to mount the lasers, (dichroic) mirrors (two per laser beam!)
etc. I think you can build it at approx 60% of the price of a commercial
laser box, but of course it will take some time to set it up and it will
also take up more space.

Putting in an AOTF is also very easy (and not very expensive @ 2000 - 4000
euro!), just make sure you buy a good positioning system. I am using an AOTF
from AA Opto Electronic (www.a-a.fr) and a positioning system from New Focus
(www.newfocus.com). The AOTF can be controlled manually with a remote
control, although it can be easily controlled with a computer as well if you
do a little programming.

However, if you are considering buying a new commercial confocal system, I
would not recommend building the laser box yourself since the company will
probably give no support. Also the lasers and/or AOTF are controlled through
the vendor's hard- and software, so getting all parts to communicate
properly might be a very difficult, if not impossible, task if there is no
support ...  unless you have lots of free time to figure it all out ;-)

Hope this helps,

Best regards,

Kevin

Kevin Braeckmans, Ph.D.
Lab. General Biochemistry and Physical Pharmacy
Ghent University
Harelbekestraat 72
9000 Ghent
Belgium
Tel: +32 (0)9 264.80.78
Fax: +32 (0)9 264.81.89
> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> Van: Confocal Microscopy List [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Namens Tim zhang
> Verzonden: vrijdag 14 september 2007 22:31
> Aan: [log in to unmask]
> Onderwerp: home build a laser combiner
> 
> Has anyone ever built a laser combiner? Is it difficult? I
> Search the CONFOCAL archive at
> http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal
> 
> Dear All,
> 
> Has anyone ever built a laser combiner? Is it difficult? I am thinking
> about doing it by myself. I looked a few systems and they don't look
> like very complicated. I think the most critical part is the AOTF
> modulator. But most commercial systems use products from other
> companies. So except for this, is there other tricky part? Any
> suggestions will be appreciated.
> 
> Tim
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________________________________
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