> On Jul 19, 2016, at 4:02 PM, Mouse <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>> Light show hobby.
>
> You'd probably know, then - what's the fastest way to deflect a laser
> beam? 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). 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 have SPARCstations with cg6s that I can use as vector displays, but
> they are vectors converted to raster. I'd like to do real vector - a
> parallel port driving a couple of moderately fast D->A converters might
> be able to do it; it might take something better, dunno. But without
> the deflection mechanism there's no point in even trying to design the
> rest of it.
What bandwidth (deflection rate) do you need? Full scale in a microsecond? In
10 microseconds?
Piezoelectric loudspeakers work up into ultrasonic range. A mirror attached to
such an actuator would give you variable deflection. So 10 microseconds might
be doable.
A faster (no moving parts) scheme might be to use Kerr cells. I don't know if
that has been done, but from what I understand about the Kerr effect it seems
plausible that it could be.
paul
