South African Research Team Creates World's First Digital Laser 81
smi.james.th writes in with news about new laser technology developed in South Africa. "The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) announced in Pretoria on Tuesday that it had developed the world's first digital laser. 'I am always very cautious about using the term "breakthrough",' noted Science and Technology Minister Derek Hanekom. 'We scrutinized this very carefully before we said that this is really new! South African scientists are once again making noteworthy contributions to the world.'... A normal laser contains two mirrors, opposed to each other and at opposite ends of the instrument. One is highly reflective and the other is a curved, partially reflective mirror. In the digital laser, the curved mirror is replaced by a liquid crystal display (LCD) system. The LCD is connected to a computer and monitor."
Re:Important part the summary neglected (Score:5, Interesting)
As the mirror has to be carefully aligned, this is a time consuming process.
This has already been partially solved using nano mirrors -- basically the rear reflector is a pile of mirrors that each have independent servos. It's nano tech. Like I said... early stages.