The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #154329   Message #3620577
Posted By: GUEST
20-Apr-14 - 01:19 PM
Thread Name: BS: Death Star attacks Earth!!!
Subject: RE: BS: Death Star attacks Earth!!!
"The light from a laser typically comes from one atomic transition with a single precise wavelength. So the laser light has a single spectral color and is almost the purest monochromatic light available.

That being said, however, the laser light is not exactly monochromatic. The spectral emission line from which it originates does have a finite width, if only from the Doppler effect of the moving atoms or molecules from which it comes. Since the wavelength of the light is extremely small compared to the size of the laser cavities used, then within that tiny spectral bandwidth of the emission lines are many resonant modes of the laser cavity."

from

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/optmod/qualig.html