What safety precautions should be used when working with a laser?

Lasers and laser pointers have the potential to permanently damage your eyesight and cause skin burns if misused!

• Before turning on the laser, always be sure that it is pointed away from yourself and others.
• Never look directly into a laser or direct a laser at another person.
• Follow the same rules for direct reflections of laser light from reflective surfaces – they reflect off glass and mirrored surfaces.

Even low power lasers can be hazardous to a person's eyesight. The coherence and low divergence of laser light means that it can be focused by the eye into an extremely small spot on the retina, resulting in localised burning and permanent damage in seconds. Certain wavelengths of laser light can cause cataracts or even boiling of the vitreous humor within the eyeball. Infrared and ultraviolet lasers are particularly dangerous, since the body's "blink reflex", which can protect an eye from excessively bright light, works only if the light is visible.