Fitted Beam Effect
Does infra red radiation emitted from a laser only effect you if you look into the beam?
I want to buy a 10mw laser which states that it doesn't have an IR filter fitted. For the IR emitted by the laser to damage your eye, will you need to physically look into the beam emitter or is just turning it on enough to emit rays. I would have thought that if your not stupid enough to shine it in your eyes then your fine... am i wrong?
The main danger is to shine it into your eyes, or to brush the beam across something that reflects back into your eyes. Aside from that, a powerful enough laser would damage your skin, as well, if it hit your skin (ever hear of surgical lasers? or metal cutting lasers ?) I doubt that a 10mW laser would do that. A 10MW laser probably would (milliwatt versus megawatt).
I would be careful of your eyes even with 10mW. Someone shone a laser directly into my eye (left eye), and even though it was an ordinary laser pointer, and I closed my eyes as soon as I realized what was happening, it left a very small "blind spot" that finally went away (I think) after about 10-12 months. Wasn't sure if it *would* go away.
The person who pointed the laser (because they thought it would be funny) got kicked out of the high school. It wasn't the first time they had gotten into trouble.
Good luck. As long as you don't look into the beam, or reflect it directly back into your eyes, there's no danger to your eyes. Laser light doesn't spread out like a flashlight beam . All the light stays in the narrow beam. ("coherent waves"). That's why it's still just a dot of light even at a distance.
Still, you might get some sunglasses that have good IR and UV blocking. That's what laser researchers do. I've been looking around to get at least one of the new higher power laser pointers myself, and that's probably what I'll do.
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