Talk:Helium-neon laser

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I have added references and removed a lot of erroneous material from this article. In particular, the original article described the various electron configurations (2s, 3p, etc...) as states, and talked about transitions INTO the 1s, 2s, and other sub-valence levels. I have removed these incorrect statements and their accompanying figure, and replaced them with proper state descriptions for the 633nm line. I did not have time to look up which states are actually involved in the IR and other transitions, and encourage such additions in the future.

Please visit the NIST atomic spectra database if interested in finding real atomic transitions with appropriate labels. In particular, look up Ne 0, for the NIST energy for the HeNe transition, 2s²2p⁵(²P_1/2)3p - 2s²2p⁵(²P_1/2)5s).

I have also added scholarly articles and web links where appropriate. Future edits should perhaps move Sam's FAQ link to be featured earlier in the article, due to it's excellent, detailed description of HeNe lasers. Also, the article is getting long and may warrant some organizational editing. Az7997 19:08, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

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The references are nice but they will be more appropriate for an article about stabilized lasers. It's on my to-do list if someone else doesn't beat me to it. Paul Koning

The references are for stabilized HeNe lasers, and are quite appropriate. The use of stabilized HeNe lasers is so common, mention in this article is warranted. It is also important to note that HeNe lasers are used for stabilized sources, which considerably improve upon the (already narrow) HeNe frequency spread. Az7997 18:54, 9 October 2006 (UTC)