Product Code: JLA_6_3_173

Authors:
Gareth T. Williams
Physics Department, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA, U.S.A.

Inexpensive battery‐operated motors can be used for a variety of safe, fast, laser beam‐steering and modulation activities, a number of which have been developed as part of the Laser Applications in Science Education (LASE) Project at San Jose State University. Those described here will be a laser stroboscope using a spinning slotted disc; a circular scanning system using a tilted rotating mirror, for bar‐code reading, investigating the focusing properties of lenses, lens aberrations and beam profiles; and a rotating polarizing sheet.