Gas laser

The gas laser was invented by an Iranian physicist Ali Javan. He later received the Albert Einstein Award for his achievments. Gas laser is a kind of laser in which some sort of gas (such as helium or neon) is discharged to produce the laser light.

The most common and inexpensive gas laser, the helium-neon laser is usually constructed to operate in the red at 632.8 nm. It can also be constructed to produce laser action in the green at 543.5 nm and in the infrared at 1523 nm.

One of the excited levels of helium at 20.61 eV is very close to a level in neon at 20.66 eV, so close in fact that upon collision of a helium and a neon atom, the energy can be transferred from the helium to the neon atom.

Helium-neon lasers are common in the introductory physics laboratories, but they can still be dangerous! According to Garmire, an unfocused 1-mW HeNe laser has a brightness equal to sunshine on a clear day (0.1 watt/cm^2) and is just as dangerous to stare at directly.