Retina safe frequency lasers

[Acaelus]

Firstly hello all, I'm pretty new to lasers in general. I'm working on a small project and ran across this article

http://www.laserfocusworld.com/arti...avelengths-benefit-open-air-applications.html



Not new information by any stretch but it's the best most consice container of that specific information I found. I found it interesting and I thought I'd share as this forum has helped me alot with my project.

SLIGHTLY less dangerous high power lasers for data transmission sounds good to me.

If you're curious about my project it's a laser data link on two mobile stations. I'll be posting about that later though.

 

[Benm]

It depends on the application.

Running laser data links through air is not that common an application. This is because they are not very reliable under weather conditions like fog, snow or rain. Wavelengths that are absorbed by water (not just scattered by drops) could even suffer at high humidity with no perciptation.

Also retina-safe doesn't mean eye-safe, especially if the safety comes from absorption by the cornea, lens or fluid inside the eye. Damage there can still practically blind you, but is potentially treatable. Depending on what is damaged the liquid can be replaced, the lens can be replaced by an artificial one (such as done with cataracts). If the cornea is badly damaged you'd probably be looking at a transplant though.

 

[Alaskan]

Low power short range IR data links are a solution in some circumstances, but rare to find someone using such, but the equipment is commercially produced and available. If low power and the beam is expanded enough, no problem and does not need to be in the so called eye-safe spectrum of IR.

 

[Benm]

Where would you even find one?

I think it'd be a really niche application where you cannot put cables and wifi cannot cover the distance at the data rate required even using goon antenna's and equipment.