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Well I will explain the basics of a laser first:
L- Light
A- Amplification
S- Stimulated
E- Emission
R- Radiation
A laser has coherent light. No, that doesn't mean the laser can talk
, it means that it's organized like a marching band marching down a street, their feet all walking to the same beat.
It is also a tight beam, not like a light bulb or a flashlight. A flashlight puts out light much like a shotgun shoots. It spreads in a cone of light, and the light doesn't light up things as well as it does near the point of origin. A laser beam, on the other hand, stays together in a fine beam for a much longer distance. A red laser pointer of the semiconductor or diode variety that you can buy as a toy may be able to put a dot onto an object at night around 1,500 meters away. If you use it in a very heavy fog, you will see the very thin laser beam coming from the laser.
In a simple laser, a flash puts light into a rod or other component, where the atoms become excited, and some of the atoms within it emit photons, which bounce back and forth between a set of mirrors. One of these mirrors isn't totally reflective, and is 'half-silvered', and the laser beam comes through that.
LASER BEAM COLORS AND WAVELENGTHS:
A red laser like those cheap ones mentioned above, produces a beam of light around the 650 nm (nanometer) range, which to the human eye appears as the color red. Another laser which produces a red beam of light is a gas laser you've probably seen every time you've gone to a store since the 1980's or thereabouts depending upon where you live. It's the HeNe (helium-neon) laser, and it's usually seen at the check-out, when store employees pass a product's UPC code over a scanner.
A green laser however, produces a beam of light around the 532 nm range which to the eye appears as a green beam.
The green laser's beam, whether it's a pulsed green laser or a steady green laser beam when you hold down the button like most green laser pointers, being signifigantly brighter than a red laser's of the same power output (possibly as much as 55 times brighter), can be seen further away, and, when used at night, or in dark places, especially where there is a lot of moisture (like fog), or smoke, the beam can be seen almost as a solid beam with little specks glittering in it.
The green lasers you can buy probably use DPSSFD (Diode Pumped Solid State Frequency Doubled) technology to make the green laser beam. Unless you think you can find an argon gas laser that's cheap and can be made the size of an ink pen. ;-)
I DID NOT CREATE THIS BUT COPIED IT FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF LEARNING
ACTUAL AUTHOR: CYBERWOLFMAN
L- Light
A- Amplification
S- Stimulated
E- Emission
R- Radiation
A laser has coherent light. No, that doesn't mean the laser can talk
, it means that it's organized like a marching band marching down a street, their feet all walking to the same beat.It is also a tight beam, not like a light bulb or a flashlight. A flashlight puts out light much like a shotgun shoots. It spreads in a cone of light, and the light doesn't light up things as well as it does near the point of origin. A laser beam, on the other hand, stays together in a fine beam for a much longer distance. A red laser pointer of the semiconductor or diode variety that you can buy as a toy may be able to put a dot onto an object at night around 1,500 meters away. If you use it in a very heavy fog, you will see the very thin laser beam coming from the laser.
In a simple laser, a flash puts light into a rod or other component, where the atoms become excited, and some of the atoms within it emit photons, which bounce back and forth between a set of mirrors. One of these mirrors isn't totally reflective, and is 'half-silvered', and the laser beam comes through that.
LASER BEAM COLORS AND WAVELENGTHS:
A red laser like those cheap ones mentioned above, produces a beam of light around the 650 nm (nanometer) range, which to the human eye appears as the color red. Another laser which produces a red beam of light is a gas laser you've probably seen every time you've gone to a store since the 1980's or thereabouts depending upon where you live. It's the HeNe (helium-neon) laser, and it's usually seen at the check-out, when store employees pass a product's UPC code over a scanner.
A green laser however, produces a beam of light around the 532 nm range which to the eye appears as a green beam.
The green laser's beam, whether it's a pulsed green laser or a steady green laser beam when you hold down the button like most green laser pointers, being signifigantly brighter than a red laser's of the same power output (possibly as much as 55 times brighter), can be seen further away, and, when used at night, or in dark places, especially where there is a lot of moisture (like fog), or smoke, the beam can be seen almost as a solid beam with little specks glittering in it.
The green lasers you can buy probably use DPSSFD (Diode Pumped Solid State Frequency Doubled) technology to make the green laser beam. Unless you think you can find an argon gas laser that's cheap and can be made the size of an ink pen. ;-)
ACTUAL AUTHOR: CYBERWOLFMAN
