Intense yellow/orange from green beam

[tttonyyy]

This is from my 70mW 532nm. Normal photos of the beam show the green quite clearly but the orange here is so bright the green barely shows in the exposure.

The liquid is 120l of fatty acid methyl esters (aka biodiesel) derived using a potassium catalyst - if it was sodium I might have understood it! The beam becomes an amazing orange colour as it hits and diffracts through the surface - the photo doesn't really do it proper justice. Surprisingly intense.

 

[Alaskan]

Trying to wrap my mind around what is happening there, what causes the color change?

 

[crazyspaz]

Trying to wrap my mind around what is happening there, what causes the color change?

Fluorescence

 

[Alaskan]

Got it, I was starting to think something else was going on and the beam changed color after passing through

 

[tttonyyy]

It's very pretty - I'm wondering what other liquids I have that would fluoresce? I'll give the 2-Ethylhexyl Nitrate a miss though, that's scary enough without lasers involved.

 

[tttonyyy]

I took a sample in a glass jar:

And some breath in the cold shots for good measure

 

[olympus mons]

I like to play with different Olive oils. They fluoresce different yellows and oranges depending of the qualities of the oils. Like extra virgin 1st press vs. cheaper oil. Lots of things fluoresce you should do a search on here for common items to play with for florescence.

 

[Dr_Evil]

Go in a very dark room with a 405 and a jar of peanut butter. The peanut butter will glow for a couple seconds after being hit with the 405.

 

[tttonyyy]

That organic oils also fluoresce is interesting - it must be something in the hydrocarbon part of the fatty acid chains which causes the fluorescence (biodiesel just being the oil's triglyceride molecule split into three fatty acids).

A bit of background reading suggests fluorescence is used in crude oil exploration, and to detect oil in water.

Thanks for the tip on the peanut butter, that sounds very cool, is that also because of the peanut oils I wonder?

 

[kilter]

Go in a very dark room with a 405 and a jar of peanut butter. The peanut butter will glow for a couple seconds after being hit with the 405.

lol wut MUST TRY THIS!!!

Edit: 473 posts my favorite laser color