Laser engraving inside crystals

[Dean Flannery]

Hi everybody,
Just getting my first laser next week and wanted to see if anyone knows how to engrave images inside crystal cubes.
Thanks

[Wil Lambert]

You need to have a YAG laser instead of the CO2 that most of us have. There are people with systems to do just this. If you are interested do a Google search for "subsurface laser engraving".

Wil

[Kevin Huffman]

Hello Dean,
If you are buying a regular Co2 laser it only has one beam and it only engraves the top of the material. You are not going to be able to do this type of engraving.
The laser that engraves the center of that crystal is a very expensive laser (over $100,000), it actually has multiple beams pointing at the same spot. One of the beams by themselves isn't powerful enough to engrave any of the surrounding material. When all the beams converge at the same spot is just powerful enough to crack the inside of the crystal. The material moves around and the multiple beams fire over and over inside the crystal to create the image.
Also the 3D software that goes with one of those machines is probably more expensive than the new laser you just ordered. Last time we priced it, it was over $20,000 just for the software.

[Dean Flannery]

That would explain why the over 500 threads to this forum I looked at had no mention of crystal engraving.

Thanks for the info guys

Dean