Joe, I did a lot of experimenting in high school with holograms and home-made lasers. You don't need high-power to create conventional holograms. My biggest problem back then was isolation from vibration during the exposures. Interference filters like the ones we use at the telescope (O3, etc.) essentially filter out all wavelengths except a specific one (or at least a very narrow bandpass), but I'm not exactly following your thinking on the grating idea as far as holograms. The laser is already a single wavelength. Can you expand your idea, it sounds intriguing. On Thu, Jun 5, 2008 at 3:25 PM, Joe Bauman <josephmbauman@yahoo.com> wrote:
That's really cool, Chuck. I'm sure you know that lasers also can be used to create holograms, because they project pure light of only one wavelength. The web site you told us about has an ad for defraction gratings, for experiments with lasers. I'm wondering if the right combination of these gratings could in effect filter out all light that penetrates except for one wavelength. If so, could that produce some kind of hologram-like effect? Just thinking out loud -- Best wishes, Joe