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Old 16th Oct 2017, 5:23 pm   #209
Craig Sawyers
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Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Oxford, UK.
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Default Re: 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!

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Originally Posted by GrimJosef View Post
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Originally Posted by Craig Sawyers View Post
Where were you working on high power CO2 lasers? A Culham studenship?
Not CO2, but KrF which is a bit more challenging. I did my DPhil at the Clarendon Lab in Oxford. The people who taught me about 316 machining were the workshop guys there, several of whom remembered Martin Wood (although maybe not the actual technician who did my electrode sets for me). So I'm a bit surprised the knowledge had to be re-learned at Oxford Instruments.

A very good friend of mine did have a one year placement with the Culham CO2 team though.

Cheers,

GJ
KRF is indeed a challenge. Even if clean it tends to pit the electrodes. There are interesting stories about the supersonic flow CO2 TEA laser at Culham - 30kW of light caused some safety headaches.....

Regarding Martin - well he was essentially out the equation when I was there in the early 90's (very much the elder statesman), although I knew him reasonably well. But the detailed information gets diffused and needs to be relearned. Probably periodically.

Of course since I left the 100-strong highly skilled mechanical workforce in the Research Instruments Division has been disbanded, and all the mechanics is subcontracted, with coil winding as far flung as China.

There *might* be some core skills left, but I've been out of there for 20-odd years now, so the current state of the ship is anybody's guess.

My research degree was in Nd:YAG, which was quite a beast in its own right. Some light bedtime reading https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/393635/1/82032212.pdf .

Last edited by Craig Sawyers; 16th Oct 2017 at 5:29 pm.
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