Laser Power Capabilities

Hey,
I want to know the power capabilities for green lasers so I can make a chart, so I want to see if this information is accurate. (Information found from this site)

1mW: Spot visible in daylight and night.
5mW: Beam visible at night or in dark room.
10mW: Beam easily visible at night.
20mW: Beam slightly visible in faintly lot room.
50mW: Pop dark balloons.
100mW: Beam visible in daylight, light matches and pop normal balloons.
200mW: Holes in trash bags, holes through CD cases etc.

Is this right? Thanks!

There are a few more factors involved with beam visibility than just output power - divergence and beam diameter matter greatly and wavelength matters the most.

That being said from my personal experience and when pertaining to 532nm (green):
At 5mW the beam cannot be seen at night or in a dark room unless there is a lot of dust or fog in the air. At ~50mW the beam was visible at night or in a very dark room, but it was not strikingly visible. You could see it easily but it just looked like a thin dim line. You cannot see the beam during the day or in a moderately lit room. At ~100mW you could very easily see the beam at night or in a dark room, and barely see the beam in a moderately lit room, but not at all during daylight hours outside. 100mW is the highest power of 532nm I have experience with.

In terms of beam visibility 650nm is far, far less visible. 200mW is not enough to see the beam at night or in a dark room unless there is a lot of dust. 405nm is about the same visibility as 650nm to my eyes. 450nm is nearly as visible to my eyes as 532nm. 50mW 450nm is about the same to my eyes as 25 to 30mW of 532nm. 1310mW of 450nm is about 10x as visible as 100mW of 532nm to my eyes.

LesPaul said:

Hey,
I want to know the power capabilities for green lasers so I can make a chart, so I want to see if this information is accurate. (Information found from this site)

1mW: Spot visible in daylight and night.
5mW: Beam visible at night or in dark room.
10mW: Beam easily visible at night.
20mW: Beam slightly visible in faintly lot room.
50mW: Pop dark balloons.
100mW: Beam visible in daylight, light matches and pop normal balloons.
200mW: Holes in trash bags, holes through CD cases etc.

Is this right? Thanks!

Click to expand...

I'd make the following editions based on my 20mW and <200mW greenies.

1-15mW - dot visible
20-45mW - beam visible at the right angle of incidence
50 - 100mW - pop black balloons and smoke black plastic
200mW+ - Burn through CD cases (after a while) Beam visable at night and in low lighting conditions.

That's what I've noticed anyway.

Lase

Oh really? Thanks for that information. I always though that 5mW had a visible beam.

I can barely see my 20mW in a room with a single incandecant bulb on even at the right angle.

Lase

Jump on over to novalasers, they have a chart for their lasers that shows that kind of stuff.........maybe that will help.