Phaser Phasers were the most common and standard directed energy weapon in the arsenal of Starfleet and several other powers . Most phasers were classified as particle weapon s and fire nadion particle beams , ( ; ; ) but some like the Ferengi hand phaser were classified as plasma weapon s and fired forced plasma beam s . ( ) Based on the intensity and field of the beam and a variety of adjustments , a wide variety of effects could be achieved . History . Phaser technology used by Starfleet was preceded by phase - modulated particle weapons in the mid - 22nd century , including such weapons as the hand - held phase - pistol and ship - mounted phase cannon . Laser weapon s , such as the laser pistol , were also used before phasers became the standard - issue weapon in the Starfleet arsenal . ( , all ; ) Phaser weaponry was invented during the 23rd century . ( ) The technology was used by Starfleet as early as 2233 ; the was equipped with ship - mounted phaser bank s . ( ) Phaser rifle s were used as early as 2265 , although at that time officers were still armed with laser pistols . ( ) In 2269 , starship bridge s were defended by an automatic bridge defense system programmed to defend the ship from capture . ( ) On Deneb V , in 2268 , death by phaser was one method of execution for those who were given the death penalty . ( ) In the 2270s , phaser power systems of Federation starships were redesigned to channel power directly from the warp core , thereby increasing the power output of phaser banks . ( ) The 24th century saw many new advanced forms of phaser weaponry for the Federation , such as the ever more powerful phaser array s that made use of multiple phaser emitter segments , the rapid - fire phaser cannon s and new compression phaser rifle s . ( , all ; ; ) As a historical note , the regenerative phaser was chosen instead of the TR - 116 for development . ( ) In the 29th century , phaser pistols were still used by Starfleet , ( ) but subatomic disruptor s were used on timeship s , such as the " Aeon " , as a ship - mounted directed energy weapon . ( ) Descriptions and uses . The phaser beam could stun , heat , kill , or disintegrate living creatures . Phasers could damage shields or other systems or even cut through a hull . Phasers could also be used to cut through walls and burrow through rock . The beam could be focused to a single spot or widened to impact a large area . In the nadion particle beam phasers , plasma was passed to a phaser emitter resulting in a discharge of nadion particle s . Residual particles could be found in places where a battle had recently taken place . The disruptive effects of nadion discharges were moderated to produce varying effects ( discussed below ) , ranging from benign to extremely destructive . ( ) The Starfleet - issue personnel phasers came in three types : The phaser type - 1 ( hand phaser ) was small and could be concealed easily . The type 2 phaser was larger and hand - held . It had a longer hand grip or a pistol grip , depending on the model . The phaser type - 3 was also known as the phaser rifle . It had a longer barrel , a stock , and some models had a second grip . Over the centuries of use , there have been several models of these weapon types . ( ; ) Beyond these types , phasers were usually mounted devices , such as the type 4 phaser emitter s , which were sometimes used on Starfleet shuttlecraft , all the way up to the large phaser bank s and phaser array s of starship s and space station s . Various types of banks , arrays , and emitters existed , such as the more powerful phaser type - 8 and the phaser cannon . ( ; ) Hand - held phasers were also used by Starfleet personnel as tools and not just weapons . The phaser could be used to heat rocks and stones for warmth . ( ; ; ; ) While there were specialized tools like phaser bore s and phaser drill s , ( ; ) Worf once used his type - 2 phaser to open a tunnel on the Cardassian planet Celtris III . ( ) A phaser , when fired together with another in tandem or set to a high setting could create an opening in a solid rock wall . ( ; ; ) Different models of phasers made different sounds when fired , depending on the model and setting . Federation phaser fire typically made a high - pitched " whistling " or " tearing " sound , for example . A knowledgeable person could use the sound to differentiate between types and power settings . ( ; ; ) " In the alternate reality created by Nero ' s temporal incursion , hand phasers of the late 2250s emitted concentrated bolts of phaser energy rather than the steady streams generated by phasers of the prime reality . " " In addition , these phasers had a rotating nozzle which flipped when set from stun to kill or vice versa . The ship - mounted phaser banks aboard the were also used to fire bolts resembling proximity blasts . " ( ) " The advanced phaser weaponry of the included emitters capable of firing powerful arcing phaser blasts . " ( ) Bajoran phaser rifle s were used by the Bajoran Militia , based on the design of their own hand phasers . ( ) Regalian phaser rifle s were less powerful than their Starfleet counterparts . ( ) The phaser used by Tolian Soran in 2371 fired concentrated bolts of phaser energy . ( ) While phasers were powerful weapons , they also had limitations . Phasers had no effect on neutronium alloys or the dikironium cloud creature . ( ) The creature known as Armus even seemed to be able to feed off of phaser blasts . ( ) In 2369 , two type - 2 hand phasers at maximum level were unable to penetrate the toranium inlays of Cardassian doors . Major Kira Nerys recommended a bipolar torch to be used to cut through the door . ( ) Hand phasers could be made to overload , either deliberately or by sabotage . Phasers in the process of overloading emitted a distinctive high - pitched whine . The weapon released all of its energy in an explosion capable of doing considerable damage to its surroundings . In 2266 , Lenore Karidian attempted to murder James T . Kirk by hiding an overloading phaser in his cabin . ( ) In 2269 , Kirk , McCoy , and Sulu were almost killed while on the Kalandan outpost planet , when its defensive computer fused the controls on Kirk ' s phaser , causing it to overload . ( ) Modifications . Personnel phasers were normally set to fire a single steady stream of nadion particles . This beam could be widened to perform a phaser sweep . Most types of phasers could be set to alternatively fire a concentrated bolt of phaser energy . In addition a personnel phaser could be set to fire a spread of multiple beams at once , a field burst of a specific frequency , a luvetric pulse , or an expanding energy pulse . ( ; ; ) Phasers had an adjustable resonance frequency . When modified , the color of the beam changed . Borg systems were vulnerable to a frequency spread in the high narrow band , but compensated for the weakness after Locutus was assimilated in 2366 . ( ) In 2367 , the phaser adapter was designed , a chip that automatically retuned the phaser to a random setting after each discharge . Using the adapter , phasers were set on a rotating modulation to allow at most twelve shots to penetrate Borg shielding before they adapted . ( ; ; ) Hand phasers also had an adjustable dispersion frequency measured in gigahertz and they could be set for specific phase variance s . These allowed the phaser beam impact targets that were phased or interphase d . ( ) A phaser ' s setting could be modified to disrupt a hologram ' s holo - matrix . ( ) Like the transporter s and sensor s , hand - held and starship - mounted phasers were also inoperative in areas with high levels of hyperonic radiation , because the phaser beams were randomized by the radiation . To compensate , it was possible to modify a phaser with a servo circuit that continuously recollimated the output . Neural subprocessors of Soong - type android s could be utilized as these servos . ( ) Starship - mounted phasers were normally set to fire steady streams . They could also be set to fire concentrated bolts of phaser energy that detonated at a specific point in space known as proximity blast s . In addition to the powerful settings , the ship ' s phasers also had a stun setting that could be used to render lifeforms unconscious when fired at a planetary surface from orbit . ( ) It was possible to configure starship phasers to also fire energy beam s for power transfer , antimatter spread s , laser pulse beam s , photon pulse s , pulse compression wave s , modulating phaser pulse s , and covariant phaser pulse s . ( ; ; ) Sidearm settings . The 23rd and 24th century personnel phasers included several settings . Types of phaser weapons . There were several numbered types of phasers of increasing size and capability : types 1 , 2 , and 3 were personnel phasers , and types 4 and above were ship - mounted weapons . The phasers mounted aboard starships were considerably more powerful than those used by Starfleet personnel , owing to the increased power reserves available . Early phasers , such as the MK IX / 01 type found on the , were mounted in banks of one or two emitters . Hand - held phasers . These main types and technologies were further classified to distinguish the many variations . Appendices . Background information . Gene Roddenberry had some problems with the look of hand - held phasers . " " He didn ' t want the phasers to look like guns , " " explained Production Designer Herman Zimmerman , " " with handles and trigger guards and triggers [ . . . ] But he didn ' t do that on and they didn ' t do it in the features , which Gene had very little to do with ; they used pistol grips and rifles , and Gene was never happy with any of that . " " ( ) According to Ben Burtt , for the " Original Series " , " " the steady blast of the phaser was derived from the hovering sound of the Martian war machines made for the 1953 version of Paramount ' s . The original was made with tape feedback of an electric guitar and a harp . " " For , Burtt said , " " the steady sound just wasn ' t the right way to go because the visuals are so different , so I made something that recalls it , but features a Doppler effect and is shorter and sharper . My sounds were added to those that had already been supplied by Mark P . Stoeckinger and Alan Rankin " " . Stoeckinger stated that " " Harry Cohen made tonal sounds with a concussive element that served what the phaser was doing along with adding a version of that neo classical space phone - like element that Ben Burtt provided to give the phaser roots in the franchise along with adapting it for the current film . " " Establishing phaser technology . According to the unauthorized reference book " " , ( p . 40 ) the term phaser was originally invented as a mash - up of the words photon and maser . During " The Original Series " , the mechanics of phasers were never explained on screen . However , as early as the release of " The Making of Star Trek " in , the technology behind phasers was explained . Phasers are , according to the book , basically laser s , but they have the beam set on a pulsating frequency that can be specifically set to interfere and interact with the wave pattern of any molecular form . This is called " phasing " the beam frequency , hence the name phaser . According to Gene Roddenberry in " The Making of Star Trek " , two days into filming of the second pilot , they realized that three years later , people were going to say , " " Oh , come on , lasers can ' t do that . " " The term was consequently substituted , based on the idea of the phasing principle of physics , which is a way of increasing power . Apparently , Roddenberry was talking of using higher phase velocities ( aka frequencies ) of light that , in turn , consist of higher energy photons . These accounts suggest that the laser weapons seen in and phasers of the rest of the show were possibly just two different terms for the same thing . Released in , the " Spaceflight Chronology " ( p . 173 ) offers an alternative explanation of the technology . It states that phaser weapons were in fact developed by Starfleet to combine the benefits of two previously used weapon technologies : particle - beam cannons and laser banks . While particle weapons delivered a big punch , they had trouble penetrating shields , whereas lasers penetrated shielding easily , but had very little impact force to do damage . Two years after the events of " The Cage " , when the problem with frequency aligning the two systems to work simultaneously in ship - mounted phasers was solved , the development of hand phasers began . This timeline for phaser development would , however , not be compatible with canon ical accounts , as we saw ship - mounted phasers used by the in the film , over twenty years before the events of " The Cage " . According to the " " ( Fourth season edition , p . 14 ) , the term " phaser " is short for " phased array emitter " . The reference book " " ( pp . 123 - 125 ) explain the inner mechanisms of a phaser in more elaborate detail . " Phaser " is , according to the book , an acronym for " phased energy rectification " – named for the process of turning stored energy into an energy beam without an intermediate transformation . Energetic plasma is pumped to a prefire chamber made out of a superconducting lithium - copper . There , it undergoes a rapid nadion effect in which strong nuclear forces are liberated . A protonic charge forms and is released in pulses to the emitter made out of the same superconductive crystal . A beam of electromagnetic energy is released from it , at the speed of light . On starships , energy for phasers originates from the EPS , while on hand units , the charge of energetic plasma is stored into sarium - krellide . This material is used because it can ' t accidentally release the charge of plasma . Dialogue in the 1991 episode concerning the internal mechanics of a type 3 phaser rifle confirm , canonically , all the elements as they were established in the " Manual " . However , in " Star Trek " , phasers have been regularly used while starships travel at warp speeds , so the beam must also be traveling at faster - than - light velocities . Beginning with the episode , instead of being labeled as EM weapons , as the reference works have stated , phasers have been consistently referred to as particle beam weapons on screen . This information was also included in the " " – Writer ' s Guide , and has been corroborated in and such episodes as , , and . Even though the phaser beam was canonically established as not a beam of pure EM energy but a particle beam of nadions , the reference book " " still goes on to describe the phaser beam as an EM energy beam . According to page 84 of the " Manual " , a phaser beam can be delivered at warp speeds due to an annular confinement beam jacket and other advances in subspace technology . These are stated to be new inventions in the late - 24th century . However , considering that first on - screen uses of phasers at warp occurred as early as the first season of " The Original Series " , this timeline for the invention would be inconsistent with canon . Furthermore , according to page 92 of the " Manual " , when phasers are fired by a ship with deflector shield s active , the beam is frequency locked to the second - order harmonics of the shield emissions . This prevents the beam impacting on the shields and overloading them , or rebounding back at the firing ship . It is not known what class of Federation starships was the first to use phaser array strips instead of banks , but establishes the to be the earliest known ship design to employ them in the 2340s . Recalling how the phasers in were designed , Aaron Harberts described them as " super - important [ . . . ] key props " that " nobody wanted to really change . " Phaser settings . The " " ( pages 135 – 137 ) lists various settings for type 1 , type 2 , and type 3 phasers , some of which have not been mentioned on screen and some which have been given a different effect . Type 1 phasers had the first eight settings ; type 2 and 3 phasers had all sixteen settings . The " Star Fleet Technical Manual " gives the effective ranges for different settings . On the type 1 phaser they were : stun – thirty meters , heat – two meters , disrupt – twenty meters , dematerialization – ten meters . On the type 2 phaser the ranges were : stun – ninety meters , heat – six meters , disrupt – sixty meters , dematerialization – thirty meters . Setting dials on the hand phasers indicated nine settings on the type 1 phaser and fifteen on the type 2 phaser , of which all above ten were labeled by the letters A through E . The letters might be a reference to the disruptor - B setting mentioned in " Obsession " , which would make it setting 10B . According to " Mr . Scott ' s Guide to the Enterprise " , the hand phasers used during the first four movies had only three preset levels : stun , disrupt , and dematerialize . Commenting on phaser firepower , Ronald D . Moore said : " " The weapons are way too powerful to present them in any realistic kind of way . Given the real power of a hand phaser , we shouldn ' t be able to show ANY firefights on camera where the opponents are even in sight of each other , much less around the corner ! It ' s annoying , but just one of those things that we tend to slide by in order to concentrate on telling a dramatic and interesting story . " " The relative power of phasers was also referenced on screen in , when Proconsul Claudius Marcus of the planet 892 - IV stated that it was his understanding that one hundred men armed with phasers could probably defeat the combined armies of his entire empire . The natives on 892 - IV were at the time armed with machine guns and early 20th century level technology . Other types of starship phasers . None of these type designations have been mentioned on screen .