>>11239567Light being amplified. That's it. It can be done many ways, some naturally such as with glass reflecting sunlight into a more focused beam, to the very first ruby laser with flash tubes simulating immense light in a reflective chamber and the ruby inside of the chamber getting all photon excited and beams emitting from either end, where one end is blocked off by a complete mirror and the other by a partial mirror, and it shoots out the partial one after many bounces between the 2.
Diodes and gases have taken over the role of the flash tubes nowadays, as you can have small efficient ones with diodes and weaponized ones with gases. Diodes and gases work differently, but the effect of photon excitement is the same in the end.
Explosively pumped lasers are pretty nifty and have the highest efficiency per burst, but lasers don't work that well when they're burst fired, as you need to keep the laser on the object to eventually heat it up enough to cause what you want, outside of burning through thin stuff or starting fires far away.
Sci-fi lasers are mostly junk science in effects and how small they are.
Masers are better weapons on the small scale for ant-personal weapons, as microwaves penetrate skin far easier than lasers.
