No speckle effect w/ 12xS06J 405nm ?

I'm building a chandelier, and in one part I specifically want the "speckle effect": I shine a laser into a flask of foggy, translucent liquid, and it glows with those beautiful diffraction speckles.

This works when I shine an ordinary red or green laser pointer into the flask.

However, when I use my new 12xS06J violet laser (I like purple), I just get a uniform glow .. no speckles.

Any ideas? (Does the "12x" part actually mean there are 12 laser diodes in the package? That'd do it.)

roeber said:

(Does the "12x" part actually mean there are 12 laser diodes in the package? That'd do it.)

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The 12x part means it was taken from a 12x blu-ray writer drive, generally (but not always) the higher the speed of the drive mean higher power diodes. (6x is taken from a 6x burner ect...)

ARGLaser said:

The 12x part means it was taken from a 12x blu-ray writer drive,

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Ah, good; that's what I had guessed from what I could find online, but once I started wondering about this, I realized I had never actually seen a definition. Thanks!

I would take a guess at why you aren't seeing a diffraction pattern from the S06J is because the wavelength is too hard to see detail well. Shine the dot on a wall and you will notice how much harder it is to focus your eyes on it than it is with a 650nm or a 532nm.

405 NM is very hard on my eyes , i blame my age and natural loss of visual acuity.

( it makes me feel odd)

Here's something you can do with a 405 that you can't do with red or green. Take some water and add some laundry detergent. Just mix it enough for the detergent to mix thoroughly. Then shine your laser on it. The more detergent you add the brighter the glow.

Tonic water works too! Just don't add detergent.

You can do the same thing except with different colored highlighters (just don't use detergent)

Now I believe the effect you are talking about is Rayleigh scatter. Maybe I'm wrong because you didn't post any pics. That's my guess though.

Hope the info helped some.

Thanks!
Jeff

That's playing with florescence instead of just the simple scattering of light. You may be able to incorporate florescence into whatever you are trying to do though. I am sort of lost as to exactly what it is that is trying to be done without pictures or a more detailed description.