SCIENCE.AM is a project by Alistair McClymont to document ongoing research into art and science. To investigate the similarity between scientists and artists. The hypothesis is that both ultimately search for truth and both see beauty in that truth.

You can read more about this here:

http://studio.alistairmcclymont.com/post/89377498845/this-is-what-happens-when-you-put-paper-with-an

Chris Hooker (a scientist at the CLF) was demonstrating the Gemini laser. The comment ‘did it survive’ was in reference to my camera. I’ve got an infra red filter over the lens to try and protect it from the laser (which was infra red). The previous shots, filming without it, shut down my camera and the next time had a big purple ball of light on the side of the viewfinder.

It looks like it sorted itself out though

This is what happens when you put paper with an emulsion film in front of a powerful laser.

This image is of a burn mark from a piece of paper put in the Gemini laser at the Central Laser Facility. The burn mark is about 5cm across. Chris Hooker, a scientist at the facility, kindly spent a day with me letting me see what happens when you fire lasers at paper.

Burn marks in paper from a laser within the Gemini laser. By putting a sheet of paper in the path of one of the lasers that amplify and make up the Gemini laser you get a burnt mark and a very loud bang. The laser fires every 30 seconds for a very brief period of time. You can see the variation of power in the laser, probably caused by alignment issues (it was mid way through an alignment process at this point)

The Gemini target chamber and laser alignment within the chamber.

The chamber itself is a very robust steel box, easily big enough to climb inside. During firing the air is pumped out using very powerful vacuum pumps which produce a very high level of vacuum, i.e. there are very few air molecules left inside. The laser you can see in the other photo is used for alignment and is not high power, this is necessary as you can’t be in the room when the full power, infra red laser is firing.

This system will hold a tiny drop of liquid for very long periods of time and allow it to be studied in great detail. In this instance the conditions inside a chamber closely replicate the inside of the lung in terms of temperature and humidity. Other lasers can then be fired into the drop revealing detailed information about its structure.

Despite the immensely high tech system surrounding this experiment, its always nice to see an old CRT tube with an X drawn on with a sharpie to help see when the drop is captured!

There’s an explanation of the video on this post by Dr Mike Towrie. The crystals used to generate the laser light have some amazing properties.

“This shows the generation of light in a beta barium borate (BBO) crystal. It takes the picosecond light from a titanium sapphire amplifier in the near infrared, then doubles it to 400 nm in a BBO crystal then it takes this 400 nm light and focuses it into another BBO crystal. The 400 nm (pump) light is converted to different wavelengths dependent on the angle of the crystal.  The movie shows the changes in colour.

A laser burning a piece of paper. This is the Astra Gemini laser (specifically the Astra stage). The flashing you can see is pulses of laser light - the laser itself is around 1cm in diameter at this stage. You can hear a snap as the laser instantly burns a mark on the paper. When you’re there it sounds pretty loud. The firing end of the Gemini laser - further down the chain i’m told sounds more like a gunshot if you put a piece of paper in it, at that stage its much more powerful. I’m hoping to be able to experience that at some point.

An image from my first visit to the Central Laser Facility, The green laser you can see is passing through a titanium doped sapphire which in turn creates an infra red laser. This is one stage of the boosting process to create a very powerful laser (Astra Gemini). 

http://www.stfc.ac.uk/CLF/Facilities/Astra/12254.aspx

I’ve just begun an art residency with Artquest, Arts Catalyst and the Central Laser Facility at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire. I’ll be blogging about my experiences there here.

Arts Catalyst Website