acousto-optic scanning

[mixedgas]

iF YOU EVER WANTED TO play with AO scanning, this ebay seller has one Ao scanner for 180 and one for 90.

I dont know the seller or have any interest, but some of you here like to play......
ebay:
160311050156

I have one of these, I just havent had time to play with it yet. You expand the beam to fill the whole window, then you shrink it back down to get the larger scan angle.

Laser Video, any one?

Steve

[-bart-]

What are the chances of successfully building a DIY driver for it? :-|
I guess you can't just hookup any (PC)AOM driver and see what is does.

[mixedgas]

you need about a watt of drive, and Frequency modulation for the sweeping. ie sweep from say 125 mhz to 175 mhz.

not hard with modern VCOs from minicircuits.

Steve

[buffo]

I bought 3 AOM's from Gary Stadler (of Burning Man fame, and also the guy behind the Aurora ion laser power supply) about 8 years ago. He told me that the company he used to work for actually used AOM's for high speed scanning back in the early 1980's.

In fact, he got the contract to do the "wormhole scene" for the first Star Trek movie. The lissajous-like graphic of the wormhole that you see on the main viewer on the bridge of the Enterprise was actually created using an AOM scanned laser. The gig paid $20,000 back then, which was a considerable sum. But after they delivered, the producer told them that they could either be paid for their work or be listed in the credits. Stupidly, they hadn't negotiated for credits rights at the outset. They chose to take the money.

Adam

[-bart-]

I was just wondering, are these devices single wavelength only, or are there PC-AOscanners available ?