axd
Newly Enlightened
Having had the initial fun with my laser (no, I didn't pop or burn anything even if I could, but I did test the spot on my index finger 
), I'm now looking further and was thinking of experimenting with optics: I mean, not (yet) the laser show stuff with electromechanical moving parts, but rather gratings etc...
Does anyone know interesting sites/pages where laser experiments are described? I don't mean the laboratory type experiments with tables full of equipment, but rather optic effects where e.g. the beam is split to give a "starfield" effect, or maybe colour-changing effects (if that's possible with a monochrome beam, guess not).
So what are the possibilities other than popping balloons or burning stuff? Diffraction gratings are only one dimension even if there are various possibilities; e.g. a CD seems to give interesting effects, but there must be more dimensions than gratings.
For example, the reflections off materials or the pattern formed on a wall when skimming the borders of stuff (skin, hair, clothing, ...) produces interesting patterns: I have the impression that shining through synthetic wool shows repetitive patters that do not appear when shining through natural wool. (think also of this post). Maybe small holograms could be fun stuff too, don't know.
Because it's difficult to get an idea of the range of a laser from the perspective of the "shooter", I might try to put a mirror at a few 100m to reflect the beam into the sky, so that it is possible to determine how high the beam actually goes.
Another - a bit more risky experiment - could be with a laser reflector positioned a mile or so away, to get an (own) impression of how intense the beam can be. (As a side note, if these lasers keep getting more powerful, maybe one day we will be able to do a moon bounce ...) But when browsing the Net, (eg thorlabs) I think I will pass because I guess the reflected power is far too low to observe in the distance. Better is someone doing the test.
And found some interesting stuff (gratings) on dragonlasers, there must be more!
Thanks,
-alex-
), I'm now looking further and was thinking of experimenting with optics: I mean, not (yet) the laser show stuff with electromechanical moving parts, but rather gratings etc...Does anyone know interesting sites/pages where laser experiments are described? I don't mean the laboratory type experiments with tables full of equipment, but rather optic effects where e.g. the beam is split to give a "starfield" effect, or maybe colour-changing effects (if that's possible with a monochrome beam, guess not).
So what are the possibilities other than popping balloons or burning stuff? Diffraction gratings are only one dimension even if there are various possibilities; e.g. a CD seems to give interesting effects, but there must be more dimensions than gratings.
For example, the reflections off materials or the pattern formed on a wall when skimming the borders of stuff (skin, hair, clothing, ...) produces interesting patterns: I have the impression that shining through synthetic wool shows repetitive patters that do not appear when shining through natural wool. (think also of this post). Maybe small holograms could be fun stuff too, don't know.
Because it's difficult to get an idea of the range of a laser from the perspective of the "shooter", I might try to put a mirror at a few 100m to reflect the beam into the sky, so that it is possible to determine how high the beam actually goes.
Another - a bit more risky experiment - could be with a laser reflector positioned a mile or so away, to get an (own) impression of how intense the beam can be. (As a side note, if these lasers keep getting more powerful, maybe one day we will be able to do a moon bounce
...) But when browsing the Net, (eg thorlabs) I think I will pass because I guess the reflected power is far too low to observe in the distance. Better is someone doing the test.And found some interesting stuff (gratings) on dragonlasers, there must be more!
Thanks,
-alex-
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