How small can a prism be made?

  • Context: Undergrad 
  • Thread starter Thread starter mr magoo
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Prism
Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
1 reply · 2K views
mr magoo
Messages
23
Reaction score
0
See video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7mXdgF2grY"

The concept of the video is the light is directed. Right now I'm using a plano-convex lens but I'm looking at right angle prisms (not the rainbow kind).

- How small can a right angle prism be made?
- And my other question is for after you watch the video at youtube: would a right angle prism only have one beam sent instead of the two the plano-convex lens is emitting now?

My goal is to know if I can fit 7 right angle prisms over the space of a single plasma pixel.
I'm interested if this is possible in theory.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Physics news on Phys.org
Television displays have dpi; one inch square that fits 96 pixels square.

1 inch = 25.4 millimeters
The right angle micro prism can be made as small as 0.18mm, Leg Length and Width.

(25.4 millimeters) / (0.18 millimeters) = 141.111111

So, I can fit only one right angle prism over every pixel in a 96 dpi/ppi area, and not several.
If the dpi were 20.14285714285714, then I could fit several 0.18mm, Leg Length and Width right angle micro prisms over every pixel.