Dear G,
I love sci-fi. I want to understand how lasers work (even if it ruins some sci-fi films/series/books).
Who can explain me how lasers work? What materials are necessary?
Sci-fi guy
Julian Hall
Noah Cook
start by buying a laser 301 on aliexpress
Henry Clark
When an atom is in an excited state and a photon is incident (which is lower in energy than the difference in energy of the outer electron's excited and base states) it will produce another photon of equal frequency, direction and phase as the incident one.
Most laser pointers and such are done with semiconductor laser diodes (the lasing medium is excited electrically through the semiconductor). You'd need a semiconductor fab to make those on your own..
Mason Thomas
laser is concentrated light end of story
Ethan Young
Laser beams are coherent (all same frequency, in phase, and same direction), which you wouldn't be able to get with a light bulb and lenses.
Asher Collins
Are like, the lasers you see in star wars a load of crap because they are 1. slow and 2. they arn't constant?
Mason Collins
...
Brandon Cook
Does the same frequency/phase/direction mean it is concentrated light?
Adam Johnson
Well, I mean you could "concentrate" light by taking a lightbulb and positioning a bunch of reflectors and lenses. That could make a fairly strong beam, but the photons in that case would be a range of different frequencies (the distribution of which would be given by the blackbody radiation law) and out of phase.
The "stimulated emission" phenomenon pretty much clones a photon exactly, so you end up with a beam made of a uniform frequency of light..
Anthony Diaz
You have some kind of medium in which you pump energy. Then, some initial light is put into this medium. The medium then emits light in the exact same direction as the original light, which allows you to create a very tight, focused beam.
I'm not sure how accurate this was, but I hope it's reasonably close to reality, if oversimplified.