
PROJECTS Amateur Scientist
Listening
to Light
Written and photographed by Forrest M. Mims III
Build a photophone to send
and receive sound on a beam
of modulated sunlight
United States public domain via Wikimedia
84 makezine.com
Over the years I’ve designed many electronic
circuits that transform steady (DC) or modulated
(AC) beams of light into sound. These circuits
have many applications, some of which are
described here.
BASIC LIGHT-TO-TONE RECEIVER
During my senior year at Texas A&M in 1965,
I modified a simple 2-transistor oscillator by
connecting it to a speaker and replacing its single
resistor with a light-sensitive cadmium sulfide
(CdS) phot ...