Light and Its Uses - Making and Using Lasers, Holograms, Interferometers and Instruments of Dispersion: Readings from "Scientific American" [Hardcover]

Jearl Walker (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 147 pages
• Publisher: W.H.Freeman & Co Ltd (November 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0716711842
• ISBN-13: 978-0716711841
• Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 8.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,903,145 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Build your own Laser, February 7, 2002

By 

Michael R. Simon (Westfield, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Light and Its Uses: Making and Using Lasers,Interferometers and Instruments of Dispersion (Readings from Scientific American) (Paperback)

All laser experimenters (and optics types, too) should have a copy of "Scientific American"'s "Light and Its Uses." [5] It gives construction plans for a Helium-Neon (you blow the glass tube yourself), an argon ion (even more complicated), a CO2 (designed and built by a high school student, and able to cut through metal), a dye, a nitrogen (a great first laser, but watch out for UV light) and a diode laser (obviously, you buy the diode laser and assemble the driver circuit from the plans they supply). They also explain how to make holograms using visible and infrared light, microwaves and sound. There are other projects, too. The book is getting fairly old (the HeNe dates to the '60s), but it's still a great reference.