LASER diffraction off a CD-ROM
June 21, 2008
I recently took a photo of LASER diffraction off a CD. Some of my friends (and I) liked it, so I thought it should appear on my blog as well. So here it is:
I’ve labelled the various beams that you see in the photograph in this version:
Trivia: Why is the second maximum beam (n=2) brighter than the first maximum beam (n=1)?
I was able to roughly estimate that the CD’s tracks are about a micrometre apart and that the pits containing the data are either further apart than that, or show a regularity on a larger scale than that. Need to do some more qualitative experiments on that.
The photo is a 15 second exposure at f/3.5 @ ISO 1600. Released to public domain. Credits requested.
Entry Filed under: Canon EOS 400D, Physics and Math. Tags: diffraction, LASER, reflection grating.
6 Comments Add your own
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <pre> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed
1.
Kartik Mistry | June 21, 2008 at 11:25 am
wow.
2.
Ravi Chandra Padmala | June 21, 2008 at 1:40 pm
seriously, wow
3.
linuxmusings | June 21, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Awesome.. Awesome..!!
4.
Akarsh Simha | June 22, 2008 at 11:03 am
Thanks for your comments. It will encourage me to do some more scientifico-artistic photography when I get such opportunities / ideas.
5.
Srinidhi | June 24, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Nice. They look very good !!
6.
nampu | June 24, 2008 at 11:07 pm
really nice