Hi Community,
I'm very thrilled to have found this forum as I've been unsuccessfully searching for some answers. If you have a moment I'd be so so appreciative of some feedback, thanks for your time.
For anybody interested the whole story is below, but my main ask is: Does a Kaleidoscope attachment on a laser attenuate the power of each point on the output?
For example: if the attachment on a 400mW laser produced a 10x10 grid, is each point 4mW? (See attached images)
In short: I was hit in the eye by a 400mW 532nm laser at 5-10ft distance. This happened days after NYE when my clown co-worker brought in said laser. I was too busy reading a paper in my hand to notice the grid in front of me and turned right into him firing the laser, it caught my right eye and I winced but not before looking right into it. The caveat is that the laser had a Kaleidoscope attachment and was emitting a patterned matrix so I was only hit by a single element of this. Was my eye subjected to less than 400mW? I can't find any information on this type of scenario.
I didn't think anything of it initially and never imagined him bringing that kind of laser into our place of work. I began noticing some mild visual disturbances in the form of Metamorphopsia/center vision issues which is why I'm investigating. I conveniently went to an Ophthalmologists last summer and just had a full work up post incident. The optical coherence tomography (OCT) and retinal fundus are identical to before the injury and the Dr. assured me there was no indication of retinal injury
Sorry for the novel and if you have any insight to offer I'd be very grateful. I'm hoping that once I understand just how much power my eye was subjected to I can reconcile this and move on. Thanks again for your time/input.