Specific safety areas
Overview
Purpose
The aspects of “laser safety” and “handling of components sensitive to electrostatic
discharge (ESD)” are of vital importance for the 1645 AMC equipment. Therefore, the
key safety instructions for these subjects are summarized in the following.
Contents
Optical circuit pack specifications
Power supply safety instructions
Laser safety
Overview
Optical fiber telecommunication systems, their associated test sets, and similar operating
systems use semiconductor laser transmitters that emit infrared (IR) light at wavelengths
between approximately 800 nanometers and 1600 nanometers. The emitted light is above
the red end of the visible spectrum, which is normally not visible to the human eye.
Although radiant energy at near-IR wavelengths is officially designated invisible, some
people can see the shorter wavelength energy even at power levels several orders of
magnitude below any that have been shown to cause injury to the eye.
Conventional lasers can produce an intense beam of monochromatic light. The term
monochromaticity means a single wavelength output of pure color that may be visible or
invisible to the eye. A conventional laser produces a small-size beam of light, and because
the beam size is small the power density (also called irradiance) is very high.
Consequently, lasers and laser products are subject to federal and applicable state
regulations as well as international standards for their safe operation.
A conventional laser beam expands very little over distance, or is said to be very well
collimated. Thus, conventional laser irradiance remains relatively constant over distance.
However, lasers used in lightwave systems have a large beam divergence, typically 10 to
20 degrees. Here, irradiance obeys the inverse square law (doubling the distance reduces
the irradiance by a factor of 4) and rapidly decreases over distance.
Safety
Specific safety areas
Overview
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1-8
Alcatel-Lucent – Internal
Proprietary – Use pursuant to Company instruction
365-313-103R8.0
Issue 2
July 2009
