Can a laser ever be powerful enough to burn a hole in a reflecting mirror?

Question

Can a laser ever be powerful enough to burn through a reflecting mirror aimed away from the laser source?

Answer 1

Yes, a very powerful laser can burn a reflecting mirror because no reflecting mirror has 100% reflecting power.

Answer 2

Yes. No mirror is 100% reflective. A small fraction of the light will be absorbed and converted to heat. Suppose that the mirror reflects 99.9% of the laserlight and absorbs the remaining 0.1%. Then, if we aim a 1 MW laser on it, the mirror will absorb 1 KW of power. So, the mirror will then simply melt down.

Since lasers contain mirrors, this means that a very powerful laser can only operate for a short time, otherwise the mirrors in the laser will melt down.

Answer 3

yes

u have 2 take apart a dvd burner unsrew everything 2 get 2 the laser and put it in a flashlite theres videos on utube

Answer 4

As long as the laser is pointing at the non-reflective side of the mirror, then the mirror can be burnt through. However, if the laser is pointed at the reflective side of the mirror, then no matter how powerful the laser is, it will not burn through. Laser, after all, is just light.

Answer 5

Yes it can if it has a multi powered battery and high and strong beams it would burn a hole through a magnet

Answer 6

:O

idk...

but its a good question...

im guessing that it depends,not nesisarely on the strength but the type of laser/reflective surface?

lets say we have a laser that emits infrared light,

and we have a mirror that reflects all kinds of EM waves...

that energy will just be reflected, not absorbed.

but if we had a mirror that reflected all light accept the infrared than chances are yes.

assuming the mirror reflected everything including infrared

(Im just using infrared as an example)

then it probobly wouldn't do anything.

Answer 7

They do. If the energy is in KiloJoules as in star wars programs, specially designed mirrors of Oxygen Free Copper with reflecting side highly polished and the other side made porous, mesh-like to dissipate the heating, are used.