eli5 how does a thermoscan laser work? I work at a nickel plant and we use them while refining our melts, and I fail to understand how a laser can be shot thru glass and get a accurate temperature
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The laser only indicates where the instrument points. An infrared sensor that aligns with the laser detects the temperature of the surface under the laser’s dot.
Hot things give off electromagnetic radiation. The hotter the thing, the higher the frequency it radiates. If you can measure the frequency of radiation, you know how hot the thing is.
So you use a sensor, similar to the one in a camera, to capture electromagnetic radiation coming from the target. Except this camera isn’t interested in visible light, it’s interested in infrared. So you make a sensor which is sensitive to infrared, and you filter out the frequencies you don’t want.
But you don’t want it to just say “yep, I see some infrared”. You want to know what frequency of infrared is coming off the target. So you’re basically measuring the infrared “colour” of the target.
And to make sure you’re pointing at the right target, you strap a visible-light laser onto the thing.
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