It turns out that regular old air makes a laser beam when you blast it with high voltage! In this video I demonstrate one of these lasers as well as talk about how it works.

social media sillyness:
instagram:   / styro.drake  
patreon:   / styropyro  

The laser that I built in this video is an example of a TEA laser, where diatomic nitrogen is the lasing medium. There have been plans for DIY TEA lasers around since the 1970s, so I am definitely not the first one to do this!

Here is a great resource for building a nitrogen TEA laser, and this was the first resource I read when I wanted to build my own: http://technology.niagarac.on.ca/peop...
(this guy also has tons of other cool info on lasers, and is an expert on DIY lasers of all different kinds)

The capacitors were made with aluminum foil and polyethylene sheeting. The dielectric film can be another material than polyethylene, and works best when it is roughly 3 to 6 mil thick. In my design I keep the top plate at ground potential and the bottom at high voltage, as this decreases shock hazard.

The charging circuit is a flyback transformer (ripped from an old CRT TV) hooked up to an off the shelf ZVS (zero voltage switching) driver. This is kinda overkill, but it allows it to run at fairly fast repetition rates.