laser burn

[caleb]

If i burnt myself with a 200mw red laser for example. Would it couse any seriouse damgae, cancer .etc.
and not just holding it there for about 20 seconds but just a split seccond when the dot is on the skin.
And could holding a laser and pushing the button cuase any harm.
and could just having the beam near your eye but not directly pointing at it cuase harm.

P.S. none of this happened to me i was just interested in what lasers can do, becuase of a sticker saying, "DO NOT STARE NITO BEAM, INVISIBLE LASER RADIATION". This was in my CD player.

AND...... dont just tell me about cd players, i just got interested when i saw the sticker.

 

[chido]

A burn from any laser that's not UV is just a burn, but if you burn youself with an ultraviolet laser, that could really cause some problems. If you point the red laser at your skin for just a second you probably wouldn't feel anything, even if you hold it for 20 seconds you might still not burn yourself, it depends on how dark your skin is. If you want to burn yourself you can always put some black marker on it. ;D
What do you mean holding the laser and pushing the button? :-? Well, if you do that and point it at yours or somebody else's eyes than it'd cause damage. ;D
Having the beam just pass in front of your eye isn't going to cause any damage, although staring at the dot of a 200mW red laser might hurt some people's eyes. When you burn stuff up close, you should always wear goggles as you don't want some reflection to hit your eyes.
In the cd player it says invisible laser radiation because the diode in it is an infrared one and the human eye can't see infrared light, so if you point an IR laser at your eye you could be blinding yourself and not even know it. Some people might be able to see some IR, it all varies from every person. If you want to you can go into a completely dark room with a tv remote, push some buttons and look into the aperture, you might see some dark faint red light, or you might not see anything at all, like I said it all depends on the person.
Here's a chart of the light spectrum and how sentitive every wavelenth is to the human eyes:

 

[Cyparagon]

Any commercial laser light is non-ionizing

 

[styropyro]

If your laser pointer isn't UV (which it probably shouldn't be!) You will be fine. I burn myself with my lasers all of the time to see if the batteries are still good, and I don't have any extra limbs growing from me yet.

 

[z000z]

So are the bluray lasers at 405nm still far enough away from UV to not cause problems? (not that there's much out there capable of burning you)

 

[chido]

Yup, 405 is good. ;D

 

[xanatos]

405 is about the same wavelength as blacklight tubes used in dance clubs, and places to make things glow. And the power available in those is pretty far from being able to burn you unless you have very dark, very sensitive skin. As with everything over just a few mW, DO keep the beam out of your eyes.

D