Question: Is working with lasers fun or are you ever worried that you might point a lasers at your team?

Padraic Morrissey answered on 11 Feb 2015:

Working with lasers is really fun! It’s cool to design, make and then test them. We are really careful in the lab though, so I’m not worried about pointing them people in my team. The lasers are kept on a very special table where they are stuck onto a big piece of metal, that way they don’t fall off and people can’t move them. If someone is doing work near the lasers I usually turn them off just to be safe. My lasers are at a wavelength that your eye can’t see, so even though it might look like they are off it’s very hard to know. Even though the light from the lasers is practically invisible, if you looked directly at the laser you would go blind instantly!