What are uses of lasers?
470780
Some industrial uses for lasers are cutting, etching, and welding. Lasers play an important role in the medical field as well. They can be used in various surgeries, and I've worked on some lasers back in the 80's that were used to accurately position a patient for radiotherapy. Just about anything that needs lined-up or pointed-at can use a laser, for example, a laser level, or a laser sight on a gun.
184809
Neon is used in lighting, as a refrigerant for cooling, and in lasers. It is used to make spark chambers for atomic physics research. It is used in Geiger-Muller counters, in scintillators and ionization cameras and other devices for radiation detection. Neon is used in vacuum tubes, in high-voltage indicators, lightning arrestors, wavemeter tubes and television tubes.
51986
Are you referring to millimeter wave radar? I'm not familiar with any system that includes lasers.\n\nMillimeter wave radar is just radar of a particular band (somewhere between 30 GHz and 300 GHz). Some applications include cloud radar to detect the tops and bottoms of clouds; using doppler techniques to detect vertical movement within a cloud; and adaptive cruise control in cars to maintain a pre-set distance.
666230
You're talking about a Class 4 laser.  \n\nThis is more than you can do in a science project.  A laser like that would have high voltage and the light could easily blind you, and the components would be more expensive than you think.  The assembly and alignment is a very fussy procedure, and can't be done in a home workshop, due to the dust that's everywhere.  \n\nMaybe you could make a twyman-green interferometer, for measuring curvature of glass, but it won't be very dramatic.\n\nI figure that a motivated adult with some electronic and physics background, $50K, and a lot of time on his hands might be able to do it in a year.\n\nIf you're into optics, you can do some demonstrations with the beams from laser pointers....
343827
They use laser, not medication.
423087
You can go to the dermatologist, I'm pretty sure they're using laser technology for that now.
747931
The simplest cheapest way to split a laser is with a plate of glass. Shine a laser through it and some with reflect, and some will transmit. Usually most transmits, but you can control the percentage that reflects by rotating the plate until the angle between the laser and the plate is very small. You can get a 50-50 split that way.
172736
A laser does that. Look it up my man, I'm not going to do your homework for ya.
1061954
They are also used in pump-probe experiments-- if you want to measure things (atomic motion, for instance) on a very short time scale, you would need a very short pulse.  \n\nA pump-probe experiment uses one laser pulse to excite the sample, and then a second pulse is sent through the sample and some property of the pulse is measured i.e. transmission, reflectance, phase shift. as a function of the time interval between pulses.  From measurements at different times, you can determine the response of the sample to the laser pulse.
87056
I've heard of powerful lasers that can be used to measure the distance.
921136
Um, not sure why you need a laser gun.  If it's to shoot things, a standard ballistic gun is more practical.  FYI, it's against international law to develop lasers weapons to shoot people.\n\nIf you mean a toy, you can always pick one up at the local toy store (see link).  You won't see the beam.  If you did, it would be dangerous.\n\nhttp://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/sr=1-4/qid=1164226650/ref=sr_1_4/602-3152398-8374206?ie=UTF8&asin=B00023C3ZU\n\n\n\nNot a satisfying answer?  OK, you can always buy this:\n\nhttp://www.engadget.com/2005/11/03/handheld-laser-gun-available-for-purchase/
505155
I think everyone else has answered this pretty clearly.  NASA looked into constructing 'solar sail ships' for space travel.  A solar powered laser placed near the sun would generate a focussed beam of mono-phasic laser light that would be directed onto an extremely light ship which maximised surface area to mass/volume by use of a special sail.  This would provide a small forward acceleration away from the laser.\n\nHowever, on Earth.. as indicated.. its a bit impracticle with present power source technologies.  You may want to think about approaching to problem of fusion power and then minimizing the technology for youur application ( a long time field of research.. not an overnight job!!).\n\nGood luck!
1139172
The only significant difference is the level of energy (and therefore power) that the lasers can emit.\n\nLaser pointers emit very low levels of energy, which is why they won't even make you feel warm when you point them on yourself.\n\nA cutting-edge laser (I take it you mean a modern laser used in factories to cut and/or weld metal) emits quite a lot of energy.  In fact it is enough to give you serious third degree burns.\n\nIf you are talking about weapon-quaility lasers (like in Star Trek), they don't exist yet, but they would require many times the amount of energy of a cutting laser.
97899
The invention of the laser, which stands for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, can be dated to 1958 with the publication of the scientific paper, Infrared and Optical Masers, by Arthur L. Schawlow, then a Bell Labs researcher, and Charles H. Townes, a consultant to Bell Labs. That paper, published in Physical Review, the journal of the American Physical Society
319042
Lidar - LIght Detection And Ranging.\n\nThis technology is basically using light (usually from a laser) to measure distance.  Common applications are in laser (not ultrasonic) tape measures, surveying equipment, and LIDAR speed guns used by law enforcement.\n\nA LIDAR emits a characteristic modulated waveform from a laser.  The light travels to a surface, where it is reflected back to the LIDAR, and a receiver measures the time it took to make the trip (extremely fast).  Since the speed of light is a constant, the time can be calculated into a known distance.\n\nWith speed sensing LIDAR, two distance measurements are made in succession, and a distance/time calculation is performed to obtain the speed of an object (such as a car).
952580
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~bramall/laserhowtohtml/laser_project/laser_intro.html\n\nThat's a danged powerful one and requires machining, I don't think I'd reccomend it for a science project but there it is and should give you basic laser info.\n\nActually building a working laser is probably more than most people would be looking at doing for a science project -- using a laser for something like holography (where you can use an off-the-shelf laser) might be a better project unless you are REALLY ambitious and willing to spend either a lot of time or a lot of money on the project.\n\nBTW, there used to be some books from TAB publishers about building your own lasers from surplus parts -- but I doubt most of the parts mentioned in them are available any more.  Still, it is worth checking out the science section of your local library to see.
265230
dust\nDon't use a mirror to look at a laser. don't use anything to look at a laser unless you know what you are doing. not even one of those 'meeting pointers'. it could very easily damage your eye and cause blindness. don't even shine a laser at an object that is not intended to receive laser energy. you could crash a plane or hurt or kill someone else.