19 Jul
2016
19 Jul
'16
1:18 p.m.
On Tue, 19 Jul 2016, Mouse wrote:
You'd probably know, then - what's the fastest
way to deflect a laser
beam?
Whoa. Interesting problem since a photon carries no charge and thus you
can't horizontally or vertically deflect it with a magnetic field. I guess
that's why folks make things like these:
http://www.newson.be/rhothor.htm
In particular, I'm wondering how practical it
might be to take a laser
and turn it into a vector display on a handy blank wall - but that
requires some very fast acceleration of the spot, probably faster than
mechanical deflection can support (though if I'm wrong I'd love to know
it).
I wonder how laser projectors work. The must use some kind of internal
screen like the ones that use "lamps". I'm guessing they just use lasers
instead of lamps to get a brightness and longevity boost.
For example, does piezoelectricity make a crystal
distort enough to use
it as an optical deflection element in such a scheme? (My guess is no,
but I don't actually know.)
I found mention of something like that in this paper:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1875389214002351
It's in the references:
F. Filhol, E. Defay, C. Divoux, C. Zinck, M.-T. Delaye
Resonant micro-mirror excited by a thin-film piezoelectric actuator for
fast optical beam scanning
That sounds wicked-cool, by the way. If you ever do build something like
that, please share some video!
-Swift