Analyzing materials
September 28th, 2009 by rbanks
Laser sight: NYU’s real-life tricorder
“The setup is simple: a laser, a microscope, a digital video camera, and a PC. Take the laser and fire it through the microscope “backward” – from behind the object you are looking through the lens. The image that hits the microscope looks like a pattern of rings, like ripples in a pond. With a little computing power, Dr. Grier can read the pattern of circles and create a real-time image that teases out the defining characteristics of an object. With an ordinary microscope, you can only see a two-dimensional image. But the ring pattern made by the laser allows the user to measure how far the object is from the lens. Since different materials refract light in different ways, you can tell exactly what the target is made of.” 
csmonitor.com
