Optics project

At work we're building a cool little project. Sorry I can't say what its for, but I thought you guys might find the actual device interesting, so I posted some videos on youtube:
Overview
Cool Aberration Patterns
Focusing Interference
It generates some very interesting patterns. If anyone could tell me what they are from or give me a reference on them, I'm dying to know what they are.

I'll post more as the build progresses if anyone's interested.

What your seeing are interference patterns. It's the result of your particular lens combination, most likely from spherical aberration from the expanded high divergence beam hitting the second lens which is probably spherical. To get rid of it you either need an additional optic to lower the divergence on the expanded beam before it hits the second optic, or use a properly ground for the application aspheric lens for the second lens.

What's happening is the expanded beam isn't getting focused properly by the second lens. Instead of all the light getting focused to a point, the focal distance actually changes depending on where on the lens the light is passing through. Monochromatic photons interact with each other, so with a monochromatic source like a laser, you'll end up with additions and subtractions... hence the rings and other patterns in the output.