The hours I spend in the physics and chemistry labs of St. Lawrence University make me a bit inured to the optical shenanigans occurring when we take Raman spectra of the materials my students synthesize. Still, the effect is pretty fantastic. The grainy pattern of the laser on surfaces around lab is fantastic, but the fluorescence ink on the post-it note in the foreground fluorescing aggressively is pretty cool, too.
That violet-blue light in the background of the shot above is the 405 nm laser we use to initiate photochemical processes. The beam is poorly detected by the camera’s sensor, but the slightest hint of it is visible in the upper third of the image below.
