Dr. Tom Johnson's
Laser Research Lab

 

Lasers are used in everything from telecommunications to outdoor light shows to laser hair removal and surgery. What our lab looks at is laser safety, developing laser safety standards and laser injury treatment. We want lasers to be safe, but we don't want to unnecessarily limit their use. Part of our work involves proving or disproving current safety standards,as well as establishing new ones. Our group is working with Dr. Tom Eurell at Colorado State University to determine if artificial skin and artificial corneas (cell cultures) can garner reliable results, making the use of animals unnecessary.

Another area of interest is the acute effects of ionizing radiation. We have recently collected data on a project that examines blood changes after an LD50 dose (3.5 Gy) of ionizing radiation.

Watch a plasma being formed from a 35 nanosecond pulse using a 1540 nm laser !! Click here for the video.


A plasma is formed from a 35 nanosecond laser pulse.

 

Useful Links

Gamma Ray Spectrum Catalog

Department of Energy Environmental Measurements Laboratory Lecacy Site

National Urban Security Technology Laboratory (formerly the DOE Environmental Measurements Laboratory)

EPA Radiation Protection Page

Los Alamos Library

NIST - units, conventions, constants

Hard-To-Find Documents:

LA-14241-H, Experiments with the Dragon Machine, Richard E. Malenfant, 2005

HASL-260, High Pressure Argon Ionization Chambers Systems for the Measurement of Environmental Radiation Exposure Rates. (PDF format)

NUREG-1535, Ingestion of Phosphorus-32 at Massachussetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Identified on August 19, 1995. (PDF format)

ORO-545, Graphs for Estimating Atmospheric Dispersion. (PDF format)

EML-384, Uranium Mill Ore Dust Characterization, Knuth 1980. (PDF format)

WASH-1251, Applications of Bioassay for Uranium. (PDF format)

NUREG-0941 The NRC's Limit on Intake of Uranium Ore Dust, Published April 1983

NUREG/CR-5512 PNL-7994 Residual Radioactive Contamination from Decommissioning

BNWL-1377 Radioecological Studies of the Columbia River Part 1, BNWL-1651 Pacific Northwest Laboratories Annual Report for 1971 to the USAEC Division of Biology and Medicine Volume II Physical Sciences Part 1 Atmospheric Sciences, BNWL-1732 Some Experimental Measurements of Airborne Uranium (representing plutonium) in Transportation Accidents (all combined in one document)

Recommended Modifications to the DAC and ALI Values in 10CFR20, Appendix B, Michael Lantz

Radionuclide Internal Dose Information, Michael Lantz

Radionuclide Retention/Excretion Graphs, Michael Lantz

Federal Register for May 21, 1991 (56 FR 23398), Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Federal Register Vol. 56, No. 98, Tuesday May 21, 1991. This is the final rule for the revisions to 10CFR20 that incorporated ICRP 26 and ICRP 30 methodology