Sharks with frikkin Laser Beams
One of the new product we’re working on at the top secret AEI research and development laboratories involves a laser. Not just any laser mind you, but a special one.
The laser is shot in a stream of exhaust and the amount of scatter that results is reflected into a device that captures the laser energy and helps determine particulates in the exhaust. Fascinating stuff.
But see, this is a very powerful laser. If you looked at the beam, you’d be blind instantly. Even the amount of power in the scattered light is powerful enough to blind you. So when you work around this device, you wear special yellow colored goggles that protect your eyes. People are not allowed anywhere near this device without goggles.
But, moving forward, we’re trying to figure out a way to build the device so that goggles aren’t explicitly required. The whole thing is in a self contained box, so it’s not a issue. But if a hole or crack ever developed in the box (which happens to be contained wholy within another box), it would be a bad day. And, nobody here is ballsy enough to take the plunge and work around this thing without goggles (mind you, I’m in this category as well).
So it will definitely be interesting to see how this pans out. They make optical devices that can be used to detect the presence of the laser light, but they’re not designed to capture scattered beams - just the focused one. Of the 10 laser manufacturers we contacted about this, none have any type of optical measurement device we can use to help determine if we’re losing laser beam outside of the box.
I love lasers.
September 6th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
You could wrap it in some sort of CCD camera, but that would be expensive. A standard light detector wouldn’t really work, because you need to detect tight beams so you really need to have a detector everywhere that cracks/holes could develop.
September 6th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
You obviously know what wavelength the laser emits in - it’s integral to your system, as well as your safety goggles.
I’d take a different approach then:
1. find a material that is opaque to your wavelength of laser light. Ideally it needs to be a pourable that then solidifies.
2. fill gap between two boxes with material from #1, with the exception of a defined flow-path for sampling.
The root of this issue here is related to what dberkholz points out - you can’t just capture one spot outside of the inner box - because it might not be in the correct direction for the scattered but still directed laser light to hit.
September 6th, 2006 at 3:39 pm
But the problem is that the box has to be servicable by maintenance people and possibly future customers. So even if we do a double-hull design (which I’m all for), the lid, for example, still has to be able to be removed for service. This opens up lots of possibilities for problems.
September 6th, 2006 at 4:19 pm
fuck it dude, lets go bowling
September 7th, 2006 at 9:48 am
Have you considered making the box airtight and using a pressure sensor to detect a breech? A pump, possibly integral to the housing, could be used to create a slight vaccuum or pressure in the box after it is assembled.