Know any good laser experiments?

[alex caps]

I decided to buy a power supply for my HeNe laser. I was wondering if anyone could suggest any good experiments to try. I am planning on eventually doing some holography work and I know about the double slit experiment. Any other ideas?

 

[berkeman]

Measure the coherence length? (Don't ask me how, though, I haven't done it myself.)

Put a small front-surface mirror on a speaker, and rock to the music (ah, the heady days of undergrad...)

 

[Ouabache]

You may modulate the LASER's light by making and breaking the signal. The coding is left as an exercise for the experimenter (an easy one is http://users.erols.com/k3mt/morse/cw.htm ). Set up a reciever some distance away and demodulate the signal at the reciever site. The signal path is line-of-sight, so you could set this up, hilltop to hilltop.

You will probably encounter some interesting effects; e.g. depending on how much moisture is in the air, your signal will become progressively scattered which will limit the distance of successfull demodulation. On a clear day, it would be quite interesting to see how far the light can go and be successfully demodulated.

 

[Homer Simpson]

I would use it like a death ray and see how many cities you can topple.

 

[dlgoff]

Check into rotating mirrors and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction_grating" .

 

[Intuitive]

Hey, You don't suppose that mirror left behind on the Moon is pointing towords Usama Bin Laden do yah? LOL