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A look at the commercial offerings of the main players in safety equipment and services
Since their invention in 1960, lasers have become ever more widely deployed in scientific research, in medicine, in industrial materials processing, in telecommunications as well as in numerous consumer applications. What hasn’t changed over the years is the extreme optical hazard that many laser beams present. This article will review the reasons why laser light can be uniquely dangerous, explain how to go about choosing protective eyewear and provide an update on the latest developments in laser safety.
An outline of some of the emerging risks when it comes to lasers, and advice on how users can keep themselves safe.
Many university laboratories using lasers have had to shut down temporarily following a visit from an HSE inspector
Matthew Dale learns how the safety knowledge of the laser community is not yet fully up to scratch
Greg Blackman assesses the implications of revised EU PPE regulations, which ask for an operational lifespan to be put on laser safety eyewear
Following the passing of Professor Bryan Tozer, a pioneer in laser safety and the founder of Lasermet, his son Paul Tozer looks back over his father's 50 years of working with lasers
A study involving a parrot flying through a laser sheet has led to researchers demonstrating, for the first time, that the strong vortices left behind as animals fly are broken down as the bird flaps its wings. The conclusions of the research challenge three well-accepted theories for calculating lift.
Organoid imaged with Andor’s desktop confocal microscope system, the BC43. Credit: Andor
As microscopes become ever more powerful, a growing band of businesses are racing to make the latest technologies more accessible and more affordable, reports Rebecca Pool
Illustration of a three-dimensional crystal with various types of confining centres. (a) Crystal with four confining centres, each trapping waves (yellow) in all three dimensions simultaneously. (b) Crystal with a linear confining centre where waves can propagate in one dimension, analogous to an optical fibre. (c) Crystal with a planar confining centre where waves can propagate in two dimensions, analogous to a 2D electron gas. (Image: Vos et al.)
Newly discovered fundamental rules have been embedded into software to dramatically optimise the design of photonic integrated circuits
