http://redteamjournal.com/2009/02/counter-optical-laser-use-against-law-enforcement-in-athens/ Red teaming and alternative analysis for national security and business advantage. Wed, 06 Jul 2011 16:48:12 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://redteamjournal.com/2009/02/counter-optical-laser-use-against-law-enforcement-in-athens/comment-page-1/#comment-667 Ethan Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:45:06 +0000 http://redteamjournal.com/?p=1069#comment-667 Take this article with a grain of salt. Many of the modern diode based lasers have very bad coherency. 1" from the laser diode the beam might be coherent enough to cause damage. Aim it at a surface 50 feet away and the spot is now 6" across. While there is still a good amount of power, the optical power is spread out over the larger surface area and is much less of a risk. If the beam is moving (by hand or under computer control) that risk is even more diminished. This is how they aim 40 watt laser systems into crowds of people at entertainment venues in other countries (not legal in the USA). There have been demonstrations (Hardcopy television show I believe) where they fired a multi-wat (40?) beam from an argon gas laser (which generally has a much tighter beam profile than any of the modern diode lasers) into a helicopter. They did the same with a searchlight. The searchlight was worse. All these stories of hand-held laser pointers and planes seem to be a bit nutty. Take this article with a grain of salt. Many of the modern diode based lasers have very bad coherency. 1″ from the laser diode the beam might be coherent enough to cause damage. Aim it at a surface 50 feet away and the spot is now 6″ across. While there is still a good amount of power, the optical power is spread out over the larger surface area and is much less of a risk. If the beam is moving (by hand or under computer control) that risk is even more diminished. This is how they aim 40 watt laser systems into crowds of people at entertainment venues in other countries (not legal in the USA). There have been demonstrations (Hardcopy television show I believe) where they fired a multi-wat (40?) beam from an argon gas laser (which generally has a much tighter beam profile than any of the modern diode lasers) into a helicopter. They did the same with a searchlight. The searchlight was worse. All these stories of hand-held laser pointers and planes seem to be a bit nutty.

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