Hand Pointer

Product Information

At home, lasers can be found in many modern appliances such as in computers, laser printers, DVD and Blu-Ray® players. In these appliances the consumer would have no access to the laser in normal use.

PHE advice to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy ( BEIS) for Trading Standards authorities is that if consumer products containing lasers are restricted to Class 1 or Class 2, eye injuries are unlikely to occur. Class 1M, Class 2M and Class 3R laser products may be acceptable for use by consumers where the manufacturer has concluded that the accessible laser beam is necessary for the intended application and has assessed that the risk of eye injury is very low. Class 2 lasers are limited to a maximum output power of 1 milliwatt or one-thousandth of a watt (abbreviated to mW) and the beam must have a wavelength between 400 and 700 nm. A person receiving an eye exposure from a Class 2 laser beam, either accidentally or as a result of someone else’s deliberate action (misuse) will be protected from injury by their own natural aversion response. This is a natural involuntary response which causes the individual to blink and avert their head thereby terminating the eye exposure. Repeated, deliberate exposure to the laser beam may not be safe. Some laser pointers and barcode scanners are Class 2 laser products. 5.5 Class 2M Class 1M laser products are usually products that produce beams with a large diameter. Therefore, only a small part of the whole laser beam can enter the eye. As for a Class 1 laser product, they are safe for the naked eye under reasonably foreseeable conditions of operation. However, these laser products can be harmful to the eye if the beam is viewed using magnifying optical instruments.

Required Cookies & Technologies

The classification scheme for lasers indicates the potential risk of adverse health effects, where the higher the class number, the greater the laser radiation hazard posed by the laser. In practice, the risk also depends upon the conditions of use, exposure time and the environment. However, potential risks may or may not actually lead to adverse health effects, so with the help of classification, users may select appropriate control measures to minimise the risks. Laser pointers emitting light with the laser wavelength which is closer to the eye’s peak response are therefore capable of producing the adequate visual stimulus, such as aversion response, at lower radiant powers. The advice from PHE takes account of the current British Standard for laser safety, and the technically equivalent European and International Standards. The British Standard provides advice on the use of lasers for demonstrations, displays and exhibition and states that only Class 1 or Class 2 devices should be used in unsupervised areas unless under the control of experienced well-trained operators. Class 1 laser products are safe under reasonably foreseeable conditions of operation, including long-term direct intrabeam viewing, even when using optical viewing instruments, for example eye loupes or binoculars. For Class 1 laser products the radiant power of the accessible laser beam (the accessible emission) is always below or equal to the Maximum Permissible Exposure value. Therefore, for Class 1 laser products the output power is below the level at which it is believed eye damage will occur. Exposure to the beam of a Class 1 laser will not result in eye injury. Class 1 lasers may therefore be considered safe.

Class 4 lasers are high power devices, usually needing a mains power supply. Class 4 lasers are used for specific applications in research, medicine and industry. They are also used in as well as the entertainment industry. Historically Class 4 lasers required a mains power supply. However today handheld battery powered Class 4 laser pointers are common. Class 3B laser products may have an output power of up to 500 mW (half a watt). Class 3B laser products may have sufficient power to cause an eye injury, both from the direct beam and from reflections. The higher the radiant power of the device the greater the risk of injury. Class 3B laser products are therefore considered hazardous to the eye. However, the extent and severity of any eye injury arising from an exposure to the laser beam of a Class 3B laser product will depend upon several factors including the radiant power entering the eye and the duration of the exposure. Class 3B laser products which approach the upper limit for the Class may produce minor skin injuries or even pose a risk of igniting flammable materials. Examples of Class 3B products include lasers used for physiotherapy treatments and many research lasers. The classification system uses the concept of an Accessible Emission Limit ( AEL). An AEL is the maximum value of accessible laser radiation to which an individual could be exposed during the operation of a laser and is dependent on the laser class. Lasers are also used in domestic products where the laser can be ‘seen’ such as medical devices, and even toys. Laser pointers or pens have also found their way into the home and are often described as ‘toys’. However, some of these ‘toy laser pens’ have been found to be more powerful than is acceptable for unrestricted use and have the potential to cause eye damage and other harm.

Report Error

Incorrectly labelled laser pointers are common. Examples include laser pointers that are marked Class 2 (or output power is marked as less than 1 mW), but are actually Class 3B or even Class 4. A number of eye injuries, especially to children, have occurred from the use of Class 3B and Class 4 laser ‘pointers’. The majority of these lasers are bought from the internet rather than on the high street, while some were bought on overseas holidays. The laser also usually produces a very narrow beam which diverges, or spreads out, very little with increasing distance from the source. This low divergence property means that the laser output is highly directional, forming a pencil-like beam that will still appear as a small spot when shone against a surface, even at distances of 100 m or more. The time taken to recover from these effects will vary for different individuals and will also be dependent on the ambient light level at the time of exposure. Medical attention should only be sought if afterimages persist for hours, or if a disturbance in reading vision is apparent. 8. PHE advice Laser pointers have been used as presentational aids by professional trainers for many years, with no reported incidents in the UK. They are usually portable, low powered, battery operated, hand held laser devices. A user’s guide to the Standard also contains advice to the user of laser products in terms of procedural controls and class-specific training requirements [footnote 2]. In the USA, there is a Federal Performance Standard for Laser Products [footnote 3] which has similar requirements, but there are differences between these 2 documents.

PHE’s predecessor organisations were involved in the initial development of these Standards and PHE continues to work with the technical standards committees responsible for maintaining these documents.

If the laser emits in the visible region then the radiation is perceived as a single colour. The wavelength of light is usually measured in nanometres, or one-thousand-millionth of a metre and is abbreviated to ‘ nm’. Once a laser has been assigned to a particular class there are other requirements prescribed in the British Standard which should be met. These include product labelling and customer information, and may include specific engineering control features to be incorporated in the laser product depending upon the class assigned. A summary of the laser classes is given below. 5. Laser classes Laser pointers come in all shapes and sizes today, although most are pen shaped. Originally marketed for professional use, today this style is often marketed as ‘toy’ laser pens and they often come with interchangeable effects heads. When the radiation emitted by a source can be detected by the eye and produces a sensation of vision, it is referred to as light. Lighting devices such as the compact fluorescent, LED or incandescent electric light bulbs produce optical radiation comprising of many different wavelengths. Their light is perceived as white light, and the bulb emits fairly equally in all directions. Lasers are now widely used during the course of our daily lives. They can be found at home, in the workplace and they are used for many different applications. Lasers are a valuable scientific tool in material, pharmaceutical and forensic research.They play an important role in the areas of medicine and industry, as well being used for entertainment purposes since the mid-1960s.

Examples of Class 3R laser products include some laser pointers and some alignment products used for home improvement work. 5.7 Class 3B PHE considers the professional use of a Class 1 or Class 2 laser pointer as a training aid in the workplace to be justified, and regards these classes of laser product as being generally adequate for such use. The use of Class 3R laser pointers up to 5 mW may be justified for some applications in the workplace where the user has received adequate training. When considering the safety implications of the laser beam an important parameter is the power (in Watts) or energy (in Joules) in the beam divided by the cross-sectional area (in m 2) of the beam. This is called the irradiance and is usually quoted in watts per square metre or W m -2 or radiant exposure usually quoted in J m -2. 3. Laser pointers or laser pensPHE provides advice to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy ( BEIS) and Trading Standards concerning the safety of hand-held laser pointers and the optical hazards posed by the use of these products. 2. Laser radiation The response of the human eye is wavelength dependent and peaks at around 555 nm, the response decreasing as either end of the visible spectrum is approached (400 nm to 780 nm). As a result, if laser pointers are compared at 3 different wavelengths (670 nm, 635 nm and 532 nm) but at the same radiant power, the brightness as perceived by the eye will be approximately in the ratios 1 : 10 : 30. Class 3R laser products are higher powered devices than Class 1 and Class 2 and may have a maximum output power of 5 mW or 5 times the AEL for a Class 1 laser product. The laser beams from these products exceed the MPE for accidental viewing and can potentially cause eye injuries, but practically the risk of injury in most cases is relatively low for short and unintentional exposure. The risk is limited because of natural aversion behaviour for exposure to bright light for the case of visible radiation and by the response to heating of the cornea for far infrared radiation.