Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange
Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [laser]

Is the acronym Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Can refer to Gas, electrical, or chemical lasers.

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Will radar/lidar still work when every car is equipped with them?

Self driving cars rely on cameras, radar, and lidar to recognize the environment around them. Cameras of course don't interfere with each other, since they are passive sensors. Since a signal received directly from another transmitter is much…
crj11
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How does a laser printer control the laser to produce such high resolutions?

I opened up a broken laser printer yesterday to find one of the important sections (this is an example photo from Google Images), trying to learn from the design of the laser+polygon mirror motor within: I was able to find the pinout of the driver…
sasha
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Any published designs for time-of-flight laser distance measurement

Does anyone have any references/examples for detailed circuitry for time-of-flight laser distance measurements - schematics, appnotes etc.?
mikeselectricstuff
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Optical audio transmitter can't handle speech

This is a question relating to my project on an optical audio transmitter. I wired up a very simple device in which I use an audio signal transformer (EI14) to modulate the intensity of a laser beam (a cheap 650nm, 5mW diode) according to the audio…
Piotr
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Why order a laser stencil?

Quick two part question on PCB manufacturing. I am looking to order a prototype PCB and all the manufactures I've gotten a quote from all offer to include a Laser stencil, some charge for the stencil some are given free with the board. After looking…
Jack
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Zener diodes in glass axial package - not inherently shielded from photoelectric effect?

I discovered today that a glass packaged axial leaded 5V Zener diode will become a source of about 0.450 Volts when the glass package is held in the beam of a low-power purple (405nm) laser pointer. The test setup: Scope probe (with ground clip)…
user98663
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Blasting copper off a substrate with a 808nm laser diode- viability

So, I'm working on a way to produce PCBs for small jobs, and I thought that lasers might be a good way to go, as etching seems to be very difficult from small traces, needed for many microcontrollers. I started by searching the absobance spectrum…
user86234
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What are the ways in which semiconductor-grade neon is critical for manufacturing?

This is a question about material use specifically in semiconductor manufacturing. CNN's Ukraine halts half of world's neon output for chips, clouding outlook begins: Ukraine's two leading suppliers of neon, which produce about half the world's…
uhoh
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What is the technical difference between audio CD-R(W) and data CD-R(W) discs?

I just repaired a Sony RCD-W100 CD-recorder and want to test the recorder functionality. The manual 'says' I can only use audio CD-R(W) discs. Never heard of CD-R(W) discs just for audio. On the computer, it is possible to make audio discs with…
Codebeat
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Laser related questions

I have never designed a laser device, but I have tried to read extensively on them. I'm aware of the different classes of lasers, and the dangers associated with them. For instance, I know about the requirement for an interlock that shuts down the…
ajs410
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Laser - damaging to your eyes?

Will a <5mW laser Class IIIa become less dangerous to the eye if I supply it with less current/voltage? Or is there something about the laser itself that makes it dangerous?
OdinX
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500mw laser diode: What's the point of a driver and will it need a lens to focus?

For a hobby project I recently bought a laser diode with the following specs: Mitsubishi 645-655nm 350-500mw High-Power Red Laser Diode LPC-836 Power output: CW 380mW Pulse Power: 570mW Working Current: <340mA Working Voltage: 2.2-3.0V Sealed…
Pedery
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What's the difference between a laser diode and ordinary LED?

What are the discerning properties that distinguish them; determining their different characteristics? In other words, I'm trying to do a compare / contrast: What do they have in common? How are they different?
voices
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Laser diode to remove copper layer from PCB

I used a DIY kit and made a PCB milling machine. So far I am happy with it but it is slow and the minimum thickness of the lines is depends on the tip's size. I want to replace the cutting bit with laser diode to ablate copper layer directly to…
dvdmn
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Using a solar panel for laser light detection

I've been planning on putting together a laser tag system and one of the big concerns I have is that photoresistors/phototransistors have relatively small surface areas w/r/t a human body. On the other hand, solar panels have lots of surface area…
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