Laser Smoke Microphone

Smoke and Lasers Could Disrupt Microphone Market [Exclusive Videos] | Epicenter | Wired.com

pretty sweet idea but it doesn't sound that great in their prototype test.

-Kendall

It would seem that to eliminate the background noise, 2 lasers would be used with something similar to Dolby.

“As far as I know, and I’ve been an AES member for 25 years, nobody has ever made a laser-based microphone work. We’re the first,”

Click to expand...

LOL ..... and how do he call all the laser-based hearing systems that uses vibrations and laser reflection or modulation, if not laser-microphones ?

And the ones based on lasers and mini-mirror plates ?

That's a really interesting concept... but it could use more development.

Everything has to start somewhere.

Trevor

I suppose the difference is those laser listening systems use the solid glass of the window as a diaphragm whereas this uses a gas/particulate diaphragm. I imagine this means the laser system has a potential to be more sensitive to higher frequencies due to smoke being much less massive than other diaphragm materials.
This could be really interesting if you could use a "field" of lasers close together instead of just one so you could pick up the detail of the relative SPL/spread in the audio field.