KISS2015 -- Picturing Sound (and First Contact): Carla Scaletti
From de Martinville’s phonautograph and Bell’s photophone to the modern applications of the photo-optic effect and opto-acoustics, we seem to have had a long standing fascination with the lure of converting sound to light and vice versa. However, just like the original phonautograph, most of our sound recording and playback devices still rely on vibrating membranes. By using light’s interaction with sound pressure waves in the air, could we overcome our reliance on these nonlinear physical membranes for picturing and recording sound?