Driving a green laser pointer with MicroManager
Posted in Hardware
Reminder: green laser pointers have a ton of IR in them. It needs to be filtered out if you don’t want it. See this old (2011!) Labrigger post.
I.e., Paul and Kurt are right (see above). The absurd amount of power you measure out of a “green” laser pointer is not because it is recklessly underspec’d (although it might be that too), it’s because you’re picking up a bunch of the IR.
But to the point, Nico shares his notes on how to get Micro-Manager (open source software to control microscopes) to control a green laser pointer. Useful stuff!
I’d be careful with these values. Measured with a regular Si-sensor the compensation for wavelength can dramatically influence the results. Only a measurement with thermal sensors are accurate without spectral resolution. For example, the responsivity of a silicon sensor at 405 nm might be only 1/10th what it is at 1064 nm.
Is the output from the green laser module single mode? I guess it is not?