Three Dimensional Images in the Air

[dnar]

I stumbled across this site today, very very interesting... I thought I would share with you all.

Three Dimensional Images in the Air

 

[JoeOh]

I wonder if it could draw a light saber

 

[dnar]

 

[Fonduman]

:crackup::crackup:

 

[Kulhu]

is this real?

 

[Morgan]

^ Yes the link is perfectly legitimate. It shows a 3D image alleged to be made using lasers! :crackup:

Oooh... You mean is the 3D image real?!!!

Yes, actually it is. There are more of these articles out there. The high powered IR laser ionises the air at a defined point and this can be seen as the dots in free space. To give some confidence, you can even see the pinkish light coming from the aperture. You've probably seen the same colour in other high powered IR setups in videos.

I wonder if it could draw a light saber

I wonder if YOU could draw a light saber!


M

 

[WRM]

dnar, cool technology. Thanks for posting. +1 Bill

 

[Grix]

Damn, where do you find all this interesting stuff?

 

[dnar]

Damn, where do you find all this interesting stuff?

On one of my regular sites Hack a Day

Loads of good stuff. I check it out every morning over coffee and breakfast.

 

[Tux]

I didn't know you could get colors by ionizing the air. Is the color determined by the gas in the air or the wavelength of the laser? And why IR?

 

[snypr]

would be cool as a tv sitting in your living room....

 

[Asa]

How did I not here about this like 4 years ago when it came out!?

 

[snypr]

How did I not here about this like 4 years ago when it came out!?

Jersey still on dial up? j/k.

 

[Cyparagon]

I didn't know you could get colors by ionizing the air.

You can't. It's not electrically exciting the gas, it's thermally exciting the gas, so the spectrum should be black-body.

 

[pullbangdead]

You can't. It's not electrically exciting the gas, it's thermally exciting the gas, so the spectrum should be black-body.

Umm, it IS electrically exciting the gas. It's a plasma, an excited gas by definition. It's ionizing the air, and the light is emitted when electrons return to ground state from excited state.

You can get different colors by ionizing different gases. The colors depends on the energy of the electron relaxation, which depends on the energy/orbitals of the atoms being ionized. The colors produced by this are the same as the colors in neon lights or in those glowy plasma ball things. The plasma produced here is the same thing, you can make the same colors.

It would take a lot of work to make one where you could select individual colors for individual dots in the air, but you can select the overall color of all the dots very easily just by changing out the gas(es) present, and they'll all be the same color.

 

[Tux]

I wonder if it could draw a light saber

What if you could use this technology to make a sword, like a light saber or something. If the air is being ionized passing a current through it shouldn't be too much of a problem, getting a complete circuit would be a problem though.