Beam diameter
The diameter of the portion of the laser that contains 86% of the total energy of the beam.

Beam expander
A combination of optical elements that will increase or decrease the diameter of a laser beam.

Beam width
Lasers are capable of producing beams with a very small beam width. The minimum beam width of a laser is determined by the apertures focusing lens.

Cavity
The laser resonator, or tube, in which the lasing process occurs.

Crystal
A solid material whose atoms are arrayed in an orderly manner. Ruby or YAG are crystals used as laser sources.

Deionize
To remove ions from water by ion exchange.

Distill
To extract gas, vapors, or impurities from a liquid.

Energy (Q)
The capacity for doing work. Energy content is commonly used to characterize the output from pulsed lasers, and is generally expressed in joules.

Flashlamp
A tube with a tungsten filament, or filled with krypton or xenon gas, used to produce stimulated emission in a solid-state laser.

Focal length
Nominally the distance between the lens and the focal point.

Focal point
The point at which light rays refracted by a lens converge or from whch radiation diverges. The focal point of a focused laser beam is the point of highest energy concentration.

Hertz (Hz)
Cycles per second, used to express the repetition rate of a laser pulse.

Joule (J)
A measurement of output energy per pulse in pulsed lasers. Maximum joules output is determined by total watts x pulse-length (seconds). Commonly defined as one watt second. Also known as Work or Energy (Q). See Energy.

Laser
A device that produces an intense, coherent, directional beam of light by stimulated electronic or molecular transitions to lower energy levels.

Laser rod
The solid material in which a lasing medium is embedded for the lasing process in a solid-state laser. Generally a crystalline material.

Nd:YAG laser
A solid-state laser that uses a crystal of yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG), doped with neodymium as the lasing medium.

Output power
The measurement of the energy per unit time produced by the laser, mesured in watts (joules per second).

Pulse
A single burst of energy from a laser.

Pulse-length
Also known as a pulse width; this is the time or duration of the laser pulse usually measured in milli-seconds.

Resonator
The laser cavity, lasing medium and a rod, and the two reflecting mirrors. The mirrors reflect photons of light back and forth (ie. cause them to resonate), and the laser beam is amplified.

Watt (W)
A unit of input power factored when calculating joule output energy. See Joules.

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