Purple laser question

Hello laser pointer experts.

I am working on a project and need some help answering a few questions I can't seem to find anywhere else.

I am working on a project that involves marking photosensitive paper with a purple laser. I bought a purple laser on ebay that works great but I need to hack it to bits and rebuild it smaller.
Since I am a complete laser newb I have a few basic questions.

1- What wavelength of laser will work best for this project? All I need is the ability to make marks on glow in the dark surface. I don't need lots of power or impressive lasers in fact lower power would be safer and use less power as long as it makes clear marks on the glow paper. The pointer I bought on ebay says its purple but that is a rather subjective word. Is there any easy way to tell what its wavelength is?

2- Where can I find a list of the components and specs for a purple laser? (if indeed a purple laser is whats best for me)

3- How much power does a small handheld purple laser need? I tore mine apart and used 4 small watch batteries (from a keychain style red laser pointer) and it worked but not really well.

I really need help finding out how to build a small, light laser pointer that can be powered by as small a battery pack as possible that will make a mark on glow paper 50 feet away. The duty cycle will be mili seconds, but I hope the battery will last a while once in use. I think I understood someone to say that lower wavelength means more power consumption, but hopefully since my performance demands are so low I can accomplish this with minimal battery requirements.

If anyone can help me with this either by answering my annoying questions or by pointing me toward a good resource for learning I would be very grateful.
I will post the results of my project here when I get something worth sharing. Hopefully you will think it is as cool as I do.

Thank you in advance.

The wavelength you are looking for is 405nm (violet/purple)

This is the wavelength of the "bluray" players/burners

Building a small one is easy.

Check out the Buy/Sell/Trade board and the Bluray (405nm) board to see what types of housings and power sources can be used

Peace,
dave

1: 405nm would work best ( violet) easy way to tell if its that wavelength is.. well.. see if its purple haha, you can use a diffraction grating if you need to know the exact wavelength.
2: im not sure if your asking for a list of parts need for a purple laser but if so, 6x diode, V5 flex drive, soldering iron, solder,and a laser host. ( im sure im missing something)
3: 15mw would work well at close distances.
4: for 50 feet away, you would a little more power, i would suggest a 100mw laser
EXTRA COMMENTS
since your duty cycle is so low, you could put a relatively high power diode in it ( 6x =200mw) and not use much heatsinking. the lower the wavelength does not mean for power consumption, 532nm can use 2000mw IR diodes.
P.S. sorry for the redundancy, daguin posted before me and im too lazy to edit stuff out

Thank you both for the quick assistance.
Follow up questions:
1- Is 405nm the only thing that will work? or just the best? I guess I expected the answer to be in terms of a range.
2- When I asked for a parts list, I guess I am asking specifically for the components on the board. I have a red laser which is only about 40 mm long and 12 mm wide and 75% of that is battery. I was hoping to get down to a similar size even if I have to pay someone to build it for me. I have found that paying someone to build something you don't fully understand is a great way to spend money and get nothing. So I need to know that it can be built before I ask someone to build it.
3- Do purple laser pointers of minimal power require more components or larger components or bulkier components than red lasers?

I will be busy looking over at the suggested reading portions of your answers so thank you in advance for any further guidance you can provide.

1: anything between 400-500nm will work. 405nm is your best and cheapest option
2: a similiar size would not be problem at all... they have the same size components, people sell those kinds of build on this forum all the time, dont pay too much for it; no more than 60$ imo.
3: see answer #2 the diode and driver are the same size and thats all that would matter
if im not clear enough of any answer feel free to ask again

Brilliant Josh,

Thank you very much for your generous help. I will be back to reward you with more silly questions later on.

It's going to be relatively hard or impossible to get a small dot on a target 50ft away with virtually any laser. At that distance you'll have a blob rather than a dot.

If you need something small, any regular ol' 5mW purple laser will do, like this. Most are overspec, but even if it looks dim to you, it's because our eyes can't see that wavelength very well. On fluorescent or glow material the laser dot looks very bright even with low powers (5mW). You might want something a tad more powerful (maybe 15mW), so that you can see the dot at a distance, and have a little more power when it has spread out.

Badger
That laser pointer is almost perfect. I just need to fit it into a special housing for this project. I am designing a sort of laser tag like game.
50 ft would be the maximum I would need. Realistically I expect it to be 5-20 feet.
How can I get something like this built that uses a smaller stack of batteries?
AAA's are 44.5mm long. I need something small like 15mm long.

Build a simple battery pack with wires to connect to the laser.
Then you could carefully cut down the length of the housing.
This would also allow for extra battery packs to be available so even if you run down the one you could swap to another. (add two pin connectors to the wiring.)

If it's going to be for a laser tag like game look into safety goggles.
You don't want to go blind from a game.
Btw lasers can be over/underspec so that may or may not be 5mw and you wouldn't know without testing it.

Thanks for the ideas. I have done several version with battery packs but they limit the design's simplicity beyond an acceptable level.
Someone found a red laser "bore sighter" tool that has all the components of a handheld laser pointer in the size of a bullet! So I know someone somewhere can do it.
I can't find out who manufactures these things or I would ask them directly.

Can anyone tell me what I would have to change about this device to make it shoot 405nm instead of whatever red laser it is shooting now?

Amazon.com: .45ACP/.45 Cartidge Laser Bore Sighter: Sports & Outdoors

PS: Goggles will be provided but not really necessary.