Uses Of Laser.

Fst 01 Topic Discussion on [L.A.S.E.R] by Student Help.

LASER uses.

Due to its properties, laser light can be put to a number of uses in industry, medicine, communications etc.

PROPERTIES

1.       Because of the high concentration, of energy, a laser beam can quickly burn tiny holes, a few millimeters wide, even in a strip of steel.

2.       Lasers have an advantage over all other traditional methods of cutting and welding.

3.       Lasers can cut any kind of material. such as paper, plywood, plastic or cloth, as also the hardest of metals, ceramics’ and glass with greater efficiency and accuracy.

4.       Lasers can, thus, make an ideal tool for metal workers, carpenters and tailors, apart from engineers.

Uses

Military Applications.

Another area where the above mentioned properties of lasers are being used with a 'deadly' precision is that of military applications.

 Lasers have been pressed into the service of the global war machine.

 A whole range of laser weaponry has come into being, for use on land, on sea and in space. X-ray lasers that can carry enormous energy have been developed.

Efforts are on to install deadly laser weapons in satellites.

 The same technology could be used to destroy factories, forests, farms and habitation.

 It is certainly a matter of concern, to see so much human effort and wealth being used to turn the laser technology into an instrument for mankind's destruction.

 Every effort should be made to stop this misuse of technology.

Healing Touch of Lasers

 Contrast the above application of lasers with their uses in medicine where the laser is working wonders.

A laser can be applied with almost perfect precision in surgery.

It can burn away diseased tissue without damaging the healthy tissue nearby.

The tissues are cut neatly and without  any oozing of blood, and they can also be joined together.

Lasers are completely sterile, because bacteria cannot survive exposure to a laser beam.

Today, lasers are routinely used in eye surgery to treat detached retinas and to destroy abnormal blood vessels that form in the retinas of diabetic patients.

 Earlier these diseases would result in blindness. For such patients, laser is indeed a "miracle light".

 Lasers have become standard equipment for ear, -. eye and other delicate forms of surgery.

From removing brain tumours, to stopping bleeding from ulcers, and treating cancer of the bladder, lasers find a wide use in medicine.

Communications

Lasers have also become an important means of long distance communication.

 Travelling through hair-like. glass fibres, laser light can be made to carry thousands of times more  information than electric signals in conventional copper wire.

Thousands of telephone calls can be transmitted on a single fibre.

Other Uses

1.       Lasers may be used to measure the distance of objects like the moon from the earth. Here, i time taken for a laser beam to reach the moon and be reflected back to the earth is measured.

2.       Light travels at the speed of 3 x 100000 km per second. Thus, the distance can be found from the simple formula : distance = speed x time.

3.       Among other things, scientists use lasers to monitor small traces of chemicals polluting the-atmosphere because these molecules disturb the passage of the beam and thereby reveal themselves.

4.        Efforts are being made to transmit power by means of laser beams.

5.       Laser beams are used to etch music and video pictures on records which look like ordinary gramophone records. Such records can be played back by a laser beam and, thus, they never wear out.

6.       Holograms of various objects are life-like three dimensional images created by laser beams.

Thus, you see that lasers can be put to endless uses for the benefit of human beings. These uses seem to be limited only by the imagination of the scientists and engineers. And the best is yet to come.