Laser

Updated: 09/12/2023 by Computer Hope

Short for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, a laser is an intense beam of light developed by Physicist Theodore Maiman on May 16, 1960. The picture shows a blue laser inside a Blu-ray disc player. Today, there are many different uses for lasers. A few examples of where lasers have applications to computers are shown below.

Lasers inside computer hardware & equipment

Barcode readers.
CD-ROM (compact disc read-only memory), DVD (digital versatile disc), Blu-ray, and other disc drives.
CD (compact disc) and DVD writers.
Laser mouse.
Laser printer.
Magneto-optical recording.

What uses lasers to save information?

Optical disc drives capable of reading and writing to a disc (e.g., CD-R (compact disc recordable), CD-RW (compact disc re-writable), DVD recordable drives) use lasers to write information to the disc. Additionally magneto-optical recording devices also use lasers to save information.

Because laser is an acronym should it be written in all uppercase?

The word "laser" has become so common that most people are unaware that it's an acronym and it is no longer written in all uppercase.

Bluetooth, Computer acronyms, Hardware terms, Infrared, Laser unit