Hard Drive Disks As Mirrors

[micheal rosen]

Hi everybody, i've been wanting to get some good surface mirrors but they are all so expensive, then i saw that the disks in hard drives are super reflective, so i was thinking of taking apart a crappy old one and using its disk as a mirror. has anyone tried this? or, if anyone has some old crappy hard drives, be willing to try this? i think this could be a good source for surface mirrors in non-lab settings (AKA aking cool beams go all around your room)

 

[Cyparagon]

I think I was getting about 8-12% absorption when I tried this. If you're only looking to eliminate the ghost reflection and you're okay with moderate loss, it'll be fine. A good first surface will be <3%. But your results will vary. Some hard disks use metal-plated glass which would be better for example.

 

[H2Oxide]

I've done this before. It's not the best, but it's cheap and pretty effective.

Sam has a few on eBay: Link