Nipkow Disk - Design

Design

The device itself is nothing more than a mechanically spinning disk of any suitable material (metal, plastic, cardboard, etc.), with a series of equally distanced circular holes of equal diameter drilled in it. The holes may also be square for greater precision.

These holes are positioned to form a single-turn spiral starting from an external radial point of the disk and proceeding to the center of the disk, much like a gramophone record. The holes, when the disk rotates, trace circular ring surfaces, with inner and outer diameter depending on each hole's position on the disk and thickness equal to each hole's diameter. These surfaces may or may not partly overlap, depending on the exact construction of the disk.