Science.lab

A wider shot of the Vulcan 20m3 interaction chamber. The large circle on the right is a 1 metre diameter mirror (reflects the infra red laser light). Through it you can see a door that the laser enters through. This only opens when the chamber is pumped down to a vacuum as the area beyond it is a 100m3 vacuum chamber containing the compression optics which compress the beam into a short pulse and finally focus it. More here: http://www.stfc.ac.uk/clf/44185.aspx

Inside the huge vacuum chamber of Vulcan, the most intense laser in the world

In the last few months I have followed a team working with the Gemini laser at the CLF. Dr Rajeev Pattathil led the team and kindly allowed me to take part in aspects of the experiment and also set up my own camera equipment in the target area. 

I’m getting ready for a vacuum test tomorrow at the central laser facility. I want to film from within the target chamber. This poses a few problems, one of which is that it is under a very pure vacuum.

The main problem with this is that things overheat in a vacuum, there’s no air to radiate away heat, and camera chips get pretty hot.

Laser burn mark archival test

The darker paper is a thin, emulsion coated paper made by Kodak which is now discontinued. But the CLF have a lot of it left over and it is very useful to make these tests.

I’ve treated some with photographic chemicals to try and preserve the marks. In this photo they’re on my windowsill where they will get direct sunlight for half the day. This should give them a good test for durability.

You can read more about this here: http://bit.ly/2SwcTSE

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.

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.