> What I would like to know is why no one makes a UV laser diode surely this
> must be possible. I dont really want to go to the expense of building a
> Nitrogen laser unless of course a small ready built one is available for a
> reasonable price.
Size of the band gap for the laser diode prohibits this sort of thing.
We're
doing good to get blue laser diodes- and they're expensive. Building a
nitrogen
laser expensive? Not really. There's this nifty article in an OLD
Scientific
American that explains how to build a cheap nitrogen laser. It
shouldn't cost
more than somewhere around 50-150USD to make the thing (I've got all the
pieces
and it hasn't cost me more than about 50 to obtain it all...) which is a
lot
cheaper than a pre-built commercial unit. The most expensive parts
really are
the circuit board that's used as a discharge cap and the supply that
charges the
same with 20kv of potential.
-- Frank Earl