page_title: Laser safety
section_title: Damage mechanisms
hierarchical_section_title: Laser safety / Damage mechanisms
caption_attribution_description: English: A laser warning label, cropped from File:Laser label.jpg.
context_page_description: Laser safety is the safe design, use and implementation of lasers to minimize the risk of laser accidents, especially those involving eye injuries. Since even relatively small amounts of laser light can lead to permanent eye injuries, the sale and usage of lasers is typically subject to government regulations.
  Moderate and high-power lasers are potentially hazardous because they can burn the retina, or even the skin. To control the risk of injury, various specifications, for example 21 Code of Federal Regulations Part 1040 in the US and IEC 60825 internationally, define "classes" of laser depending on their power and wavelength. These regulations impose upon manufacturers required safety measures, such as labeling lasers with specific warnings, and wearing laser safety goggles when operating lasers. Consensus standards, such as American National Standards Institute Z136, provide users with control measures for laser hazards, as well as various tables helpful in calculating maximum permissible exposure limits and accessible exposures limits.
context_section_description: Lasers can cause damage in biological tissues, both to the eye and to the skin, due to several mechanisms. Thermal damage, or burn, occurs when tissues are heated to the point where denaturation of proteins occurs. Another mechanism is photochemical damage, where light triggers chemical reactions in tissue. Photochemical damage occurs mostly with short-wavelength (blue and ultra-violet) light and can be accumulated over the course of hours. Laser pulses shorter than about 1 μs can cause a rapid rise in temperature, resulting in explosive boiling of water. The shock wave from the explosion can subsequently cause damage relatively far away from the point of impact. Ultrashort pulses can also exhibit self-focusing in the transparent parts of the eye, leading to an increase of the damage potential compared to longer pulses with the same energy. Photoionization proved to be the main mechanism of radiation damage at the use of titanium-sapphire laser.
  The eye focuses visible and near-infrared light onto the retina. A laser beam can be focused to an intensity on the retina which may be up to 200,000 times higher than at the point where the laser beam enters the eye. Most of the light is absorbed by melanin pigments in the pigment epithelium just behind the photoreceptors, and causes burns in the retina. Ultraviolet light with wavelengths shorter than 400 nm tends to be absorbed by lens and 300 nm in the cornea, where it can produce injuries at relatively low powers due to photochemical damage. Infrared light mainly causes thermal damage to the retina at near-infrared wavelengths and to more frontal parts of the eye at longer wavelengths. The table below summarizes the various medical conditions caused by lasers at different wavelengths, not including injuries due to pulsed lasers.
  The skin is usually much less sensitive to laser light than the eye, but excessive exposure to ultraviolet light from any source (laser or non-laser) can cause short- and long-term effects similar to sunburn, while visible and infrared wavelengths are mainly harmful due to thermal damage.
caption: Typical US (ANSI) laser warning label
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