Lasers

... is that a laser emits light coherently. The ability of a laser to focus to a tight spot is due to the spatial coherence. For this reason, lasers can be used for cutting and lithography. In addition, spatial coherence allows a laser beam to stay narrow over a long distance. Laser Design A laser usually ... energy when it absorbs energy, but transitions only takes place between discrete energy levels. As a result, lines are emitted and absorbed. History of Lasers As early as 1917, Albert Einstein came up with the theoretical foundation for both the laser and maser. This was through his pa...

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... have tools sharpened. It has also made it safer for the workers because they can be in a separate room out of the danger. These lasers can do precision welding. It does not make the metal hot like a conventional acetylene torch therefore it does not weaken metal. Warehouses where plastic, ... be sent up to 100 kilometers before you need a signal booster compared to the current system where you needed a signal booster every 1.5 kilometers. Photography Lasers can produce a type of three-dimensional image called holograms. Holograms are made by exposing laser light to a piece of film. The o...

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... population of atoms in the metastable state, although atoms falling back to a lower level are elevated back up again by the glow-discharge phenomenon. There are also semiconductor-lasers. Semiconductor materials are neither good conductors of electricity nor perfect insulators. Direct current flows through material by connecting power source to electrodes affixed to opposite surfaces, atoms within ... correcting machine-tod geometry. Laser systems can also be used as feedback devices on extremely accurate machines, these are such things as numerically controlled measuring machines. Applic...

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... the OPEC oil crisis led to increased funding for laser research investigating things such as air-pollution monitoring and energy applications. Communications became one of the biggest arenas in which lasers were thought to have application. Increasing telephone use, electronic transmission, relaying of television signals, and the need for communication in space all contributed to the emphasis placed on laser ... improved, natural vision. Prior to the LASIK procedure, drops are placed on the eye to numb the cornea. The entire treatment takes about 15 to 16 minutes. One of the lasers that...

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... a vehicle, used for cutting in minor surgeries, or just used for you remote to your television to change the channel. There are many different kinds of lasers that have a large array of powers starting from the most powerful; an atomic laser to the weakest; an infrared laser. An atomic laser can emit a ... at twenty-seven million bursts per second. An infrared laser emits about two volts per second. The way these two lasers work are remotely relative, but I am going to explain the basic way most lasers work. The first part of a laser is the initial start of the light, which is created b...

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... first gas laser using helium and neon. This type of laser, called the He-Ne Laser was used for reading UPC product codes and surveying equipment. Lasers before the He-Ne laser were only able to discharge large 'blasts', this was the first laser able to produce a continuous stream. The U.S. ... laser. We are capable of heating, melting or vaporising metal very percisly. They are the most effective detectors of certain types of air pollution. Lasers are still used in surveying, but can now measure distances into space such as how far the moon is away (approximately 400,000kms) and are ......

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... diode (LED), had the potential to generate large amounts of light in a spot tiny enough to be useful for fiber optics. In 1957, Gordon Gould popularized the idea of using lasers when, as a graduate student at Columbia University, he described the laser as an intense light source. Shortly after, Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow at Bell Laboratories supported the laser in ... scientific circles. Lasers went through several generations including the development of the ruby laser and the helium-neon laser in 1960. Semiconductor lasers were first realized in 1962; these lasers are the type...

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... the body. This was actually the first step toward the development of bionics. Scientists today are still toying with chemical reactions. They are trying to control them with lasers. Scientists are trying to use lasers to prod a chemical reaction that could go one way or another, the way they want it to. They want to direct the molecules in one direction. The ... to excite molecules and cause reactions has been elusive. Recently, though, chemist Robert J. Gordon at the University of Illinois achieved "coherent phase control of hydrogen disulfide molecules by firing ultraviolet lasers of ...

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... being set up to facilitate communication and tracking of progress. The overall budget needs for the efforts are expected to be about $200 million per year for approximately 15 years. Lasers are used in the detection of DNA in many aspects of the project; a very important use is in sorting chromosomes by flow cytometry ... also used in confocal fluorescence laser microscopy to excite fluorescently tagged molecules in genome mapping, in addition to other mapping uses. In diagnostic applications, lasers are used with fluorescent probes attached to DNA to light up chromosomes and to create ...

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• Grade Level: Undergraduate