FOR SCIENCE...Laser Sharp!

Lasers emit narrow, intense beams of light. The beams can be used to drill, cut or melt materials. As you can see At the Hospital, lasers can be used to cut out diseased body tissue. Laser beams can also be used to transmit communication signals. Microlasers are miniaturized, solid-state lasers that offer much better performance that traditional lasers.

Amoco Laser Company of Naperville, Illinois, is a leader in microlaser technology (one of their models is shown above). Their lasers are used in many applications, such as medical instruments, color graphics and printing, advanced TV projection, telecommunications, data storage, and semi-conductor processing.

In developing their microlasers, Amoco combined their technology with advances made by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. JPL’s work concentrated on using lasers to communicate between Earth and spacecraft millions of miles away. Amoco adopted JPL’s approach of using tiny diodes (which deliver electrical current) to “pump” a solid state laser. This method is very efficient electronically and produces a very narrow and precise laser beam.