Laser cat

To a cat, few things are more exciting than a little red dot created by a laser. When researchers wanted to show how they could encode an entire image into a laser beam, it was therefore inevitable that the image they would use was that of a cat.

(Credit: P. Silva and S. Muniz)

Pedro Silva and Sérgio Muniz from the university of Sao Paolo in Brazil created this work of art by sending a laser beam through a spatial light modulator, a device made with liquid crystals. Using magnetic fields, these crystals can be made to act like tiny prisms. With some suitable programming, this results in the image above.

There are other uses for this apparatus. The same technique can be used to manipulate ultra-cold atoms which has application in the simulation of quantum effects. The quality of the image Silva and Muniz produced demonstrates the precision and smoothness of their technique.

We don’t know anything about the identity of the cat in the image. In the paper, the researchers refer to it merely as a complex gray-level image. We’ll update this post if we find out more information.