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How does the color of a balloon effect how fast a red laser can pop it?

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How does the color of a balloon effect how fast a red laser can pop it? I Am thinking that the darker colors that are farther away from red on the color wheel will be popped fastest.

e.x.
The fastest to pop will be green, black, purple, blue,
and yellow, orange, and red balloons will not pop at all
 





You are correct, the darker a color it is the better it absorbs the color which creates heat, thus popping the balloon. but some colors will burn/pop other colors, like Blu-Ray burns printer paper even though it's white, the 405nm wavelength sees it as a dark color so it absorbs a lot more of the energy creating heat.
 
Black is the best for all colors. Sure blue will work for red but you have to get the right shade of blue to get the most effective absorbsion for your laser color, where-as black is already "set" for every color.
 
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Black is the best for all colors. Sure blue will work for red but you have to get the right shade of blue to get the most effective absorbsion for your laser color, where-as black is alredy set for every color.
Click to expand...

Yeah, thats why I said color. I was just lettin him know because he put green in front of blue.
 
The color you see of an object is from its reflected light. So if you see a green ballon, it's reflecting green light and absorbing blue and red. That absorption gets converted into heat, as was mentioned above; so you want to reflect as little of the beam as possible, and absorb as much of it as possible.

Try this.

Real_Color_Wheel_475.jpg


Find the color of the laser on the wheel, and go to the opposite side of the wheel to find your desired 'best popping' color. Example: for BluRay you'd pick segment 19 or so, and look for a balloon close to Segment 1's color. (Yellow.) For deep red (Dilda), go from 9 to 27 -- a blue-green balloon. For 532nm (just on the blue side of green) go from about 30, across to 12 (look for a 'truer red' balloon vs an 'orange red' balloon.)

I want to find a good purple balloon to see if my 15mW orange has any chance of some popping action - that'd be cool, but I think it's just under the border of 'not gonna do it'. :)
 
just for clarity, the darker the color the better. Going across the colour wheel will not always work. Follow the light spectrum. White will be hardest to pop regardless of laser color. Yellow, pink, and light green will also be very hard due to the fact that they absorb less color and tend to be clearer and more reflective (brighter). Black, dark purple, darker greens, and dark blue (anything DARK) will work reliably with most any laser. I have even found it easy to pop dark blue balloons with a 445nm laser.

-Jon
 
DuKtapeLaZ3R said:
just for clarity, the darker the color the better. Going across the colour wheel will not always work. Follow the light spectrum. White will be hardest to pop regardless of laser color. Yellow, pink, and light green will also be very hard due to the fact that they absorb less color and tend to be clearer and more reflective (brighter). Black, dark purple, darker greens, and dark blue (anything DARK) will work reliably with most any laser. I have even found it easy to pop dark blue balloons with a 445nm laser.

-Jon
Click to expand...
Although i agree on what you said as a rule of thumb, and the most basic thing when you see practical side of burning / light absorption phenomenon, but i think you should be more technical when explaining things such as why is it so , Be specific , the theory (or links) are very helpful, sometime even after years the information can be useful so it will be very critical to post maximum information if possible.. Thanks.
 
Yes dark mat surfaces good, light reflective surfaces bad.

Please please post a pic of the shampoo bottle green laser :D
 
DuKtapeLaZ3R said:
just for clarity, the darker the color the better. Going across the colour wheel will not always work. Follow the light spectrum. White will be hardest to pop regardless of laser color. Yellow, pink, and light green will also be very hard due to the fact that they absorb less color and tend to be clearer and more reflective (brighter). Black, dark purple, darker greens, and dark blue (anything DARK) will work reliably with most any laser. I have even found it easy to pop dark blue balloons with a 445nm laser.

-Jon
Click to expand...

Ok. Here's the thing. Generally, the absorption spectra of a series of complex (organic) mixes of compounds will be a mess to analyze. The emission spectra is not going to be the same thing as the absorption spectra is.

So what I'm saying is, the material that you're attempting to heat is a much larger factor to consider than the apparent color of the material. Remember colors are fairly subjective to the human eye and are often a complex mix of wavelengths that only add up to the apparent point on the spectrum. The apparent wavelength doesn't even have to be part of the spectra.

So the material's mechanical properties such as boiling temp, N of free electrons per/cm^2 and heat conductivity are primarily the heavy factors.

Try heating a dark blue material which is also an electrical conductor, you may have a difficult time seeing a dT/dt of significance.
 
Meatball said:
Ok. Here's the thing. Generally, the absorption spectra of a series of complex (organic) mixes of compounds will be a mess to analyze. The emission spectra is not going to be the same thing as the absorption spectra is.

So what I'm saying is, the material that you're attempting to heat is a much larger factor to consider than the apparent color of the material. Remember colors are fairly subjective to the human eye and are often a complex mix of wavelengths that only add up to the apparent point on the spectrum. The apparent wavelength doesn't even have to be part of the spectra.

So the material's mechanical properties such as boiling temp, N of free electrons per/cm^2 and heat conductivity are primarily the heavy factors.

Try heating a dark blue material which is also an electrical conductor, you may have a difficult time seeing a dT/dt of significance.
Click to expand...

give, I assumed the different wavelengths and combinations in relation to all being of a shared substance.

Also, for further information, remember that something of a color appears that way because it reflects that color (e.i. red balloon reflects red light). This means it will reflect a laser of that color as will colors composed of the laser's color (white color comes from reflecting red, green, blue etc. light).

-Jon
 
Right, to some extent you're right. Many materials have the ability to reflect "red" for instance. But that does not necessarily mean that all reds far under that category. You can find bandwidths 5-150nm wide which behave far differently than the surrounding wavelengths on either side. So even if a material appears red, it would be the result of the surrounding wavelengths, not the bandgap which could still be easily absorbed.

An ordinary mirror "appears" to be all colors at once, right?

In the lab, we normally use dichroic mirrors that are made for the specific laser beam we need to aim. We do this because dichroics have very predictable behavior for that particular wavelength. We avoid using ordinary aluminum coated mirrors because they can't handle high power 808nm beams for example. The damage threshold at 808nm decreases. See these for example:

Fig8.gif


This one is from a Thorlabs mirror:
ProtectedAluminum_45deg_20um_lrg.gif


The 800nm - 900nm bandwidth is actually 15% absorbed by the Al atoms which heats the mirror and can damage it. Sure, these mirrors for example are fine for 2W of 808nm, but they still exhibit losses- which at 2W is significant.

When we use the Nd:YAG, we don't dare use one of these to reflect a 3kW pulse. Do that make sense? I feel my point is getting lost in the details..
 
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