• Question: how did you use lasers?

    Asked by anon-40226 to Vanessa on 15 Nov 2022.
    • Photo: Vanessa Rodrigues

      Vanessa Rodrigues answered on 15 Nov 2022:

      LASERs are just sources of light with unique properties that can be controlled- like its power or pressure or orientation.

      I used a technique called Laser direct writing to fabricate a lens design. What you usually use in your school science lab is a big curved glass that can focus light. My design is flat and is engraved in glass using pulsed laser light.

      I also used it like a tweezer to move objects without physically touching them.

      Then, we’ve used very high power pulsed laser light to collide on a gas target and it generated electrons. The fourth state of matter (Plasma) is created in this process and it accelerates the electrons. This is part of particle physics and I helped with engineering optics/ electronics to make this happen.

      Now I am learning to use it in biology. Here we try to study changes in properties of light as it passes through layers of our body. A Fitbit is just an example (I did not work with this).

Comments

  • Photo: Hilde

    Hilde commented on :

    I use a laser to map rocks for specific elements.
    A laser is very powerful and can remove material from a rock. This way I produce very colourful maps where you can see how the elements are in relation to each other.