I haven't completely followed through with this one, but I would like to share an interesting experiment. There now exists an optical mouse for computers. It works by illuminating a surface with a bright red led, and imaging it with a small magnifier onto a special dsp-based low res ccd. I put a piece of scotch tape over the aperture of the mouse, and aimed a spread laser beam at the tape. When the laser moves, the pointer moves. I thought this may be a cheap way to see if a table is stable by setting up an interferometer, and projecting the interference pattern onto the mouse' sensor. I wonder if minute amounts of movement could be detected. The problem is, my beam splitter broke, and I cannot complete my experiment. Just thought I would throw that out there. On a similar note, has anyone ever built a 2 tiered steel table with a built in interferometer? If the above technique could be perfected, then an automatic indicator of stability could let you know when it's safe to make an exposure. Thanks for listening
Chumly - Wed, May 16, 01 07:48:26 PM
I'm no expert, waiting for my first laser to arrive. Or maybe second, I have a MS IntelliMouse Explorer. I love it, no more dirty mouse ball! I don't think it would be sensitive enough for this purpose. But I wonder what kind of tricks I can play on the mouse once I get a laser?
As for the second note, would it necessarily need to be 2 tier, wouldnít just on different heights on the same level be good enough? Possibly some shielding needed, but the beam shouldnít need to be on a different level, just different height?
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