LASERs

I've always been fascinated with LASERs since a child. Wanted to study Physics/Quantum Machanics because of it. I remember looking into building a CO2 and Ruby Pulsed LASER when in my young teens. Obviously that wasn't a financially feasible thing to a kid. Well over time they came out with LASER diodes which were solid state components which produced coherent beams of light (we now know of these as LASER pointers). Back when the initially came out there weren't any that were in the VISIBLE wave length, or if there were they were extremely expensive. Now you can walk into a DOLLAR store and pick one up for about a 1-5$. When I first got one for presentations it cost me 170$, wow was I an idiot back then.

Seems we've come a long way in portable LASER devices. Most (or ALL?) pointers are limited to the under 5mw power I believe. A company in the US sells high powered handhelds for pretty reasonable prices. A good place to go for people interested in doing amateur 3D hologram projects or 3D object scanning.

Check them out at www.wickedlasers.com.