Abstract

Laser eye safety is one of the most important topics covered in any laser curriculum. Before students begin working hands-on with laser labs, it is extremely critical for students to understand safe methods to observe when using and operating lasers. Since the eye is the most vulnerable body part to laser energy damage, it is important for students to have a good understanding of how the eye may be damaged by laser energy, and how to protect it from laser energy. Typically, students studying laser safety learn about laser eye safety by studying parts of the eye, wavelength relationships with damage to different eye parts, magnification relationships, and interacting irradiance levels and wavelengths. The curriculum material and tools generally used by students studying laser eye safety only involves ANSI standards, technical explanations, pictures and equations. Central Carolina Community College and LASER-TEC have developed a Laser Safety Eye Lab to provide students an additional learning tool for studying this topic. The lab includes the use of a sheep eye for demonstrating the interactions between various parts of the eye and different aspects of laser energy, including coherence, irradiance, with respect to wavelength variations. This lab will provide students a hands-on learning experience of all the important interactions of the eye and laser energy relative to laser eye safety.

LASER-TEC Co-PI Gary Beasley, Central Carolina CC, and Chrys Panayiotou, LASER-TEC PI will share the new lab. A copy of the presentation will be shared with all participants.

© 2019 SPIE, ICO, IEEE, OSA