Similar project discussed four days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26012652

In the reference section they made mention of that project that was discussed four days ago as one of their sources of inspiration.

I couldn't find this information. What is the magnification that you get in this way?

With those $15 digital microscopes, you get at least 150X.

would a bluray-drive laser be better resolution? or does that work differently

One of the Blu-ray models was a hackaday winner a few years back.

You can see the log of their efforts and a handful of sub-micron images here: https://hackaday.io/project/9205/logs

My gut would be yes.

Note: be careful the lasers in disc drives can be quite powerful. So protect your eyes.

but also means even more precise structure and setup