Technology and the built world

LAS file format

The LAS file format is an open binary file format for storing three-dimensional lidar point cloud data, published by ASPRS since 2003 and widely used in remote sensing.

Las Huelgas (Burgos)

Las Huelgas is a Cistercian nunnery in Burgos, Spain, founded in 1187 by King Alfonso VIII of Castile and serving as a royal pantheon and coronation church.

Las Pailas Geothermal Power Station

Las Pailas Geothermal Power Station (Complejo Geotérmico Las Pailas) is a geothermal power complex on Rincón de la Vieja volcano in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, owned by ICE.

Las Vegas Monorail

The Las Vegas Monorail is an automated, driverless 3.9-mile elevated monorail on the Las Vegas Strip, linking the MGM Grand and SAHARA Las Vegas with seven stations.

LaSalle nuclear power plant

The LaSalle nuclear power plant in Brookfield Township, LaSalle County, Illinois, is a two-unit boiling water reactor station generating up to 2,320 MW, operated by Constellation Energy.

Lascar

A lascar was a sailor from South Asia or the Indian Ocean region employed on European ships, a term first used at sea by the Portuguese in the early 1500s.

Laser

A laser is a device producing a narrow, intense beam of coherent light by stimulated emission, first demonstrated in 1960 and now central to telecommunications, medicine, and manufacturing.

Laser (dinghy)

The Laser, since 2019 formally the ILCA, is a single-handed one-design sailing dinghy designed in 1969 and 1970 by the Canadians Bruce Kirby and Ian Bruce.

Laser annealing

Laser annealing is a semiconductor manufacturing technique that uses pulsed laser energy to activate implanted dopants and repair crystal damage while heating only a thin surface layer.

Laser beam welding

Laser beam welding, also called fiber laser welding, is a welding process that joins metals with a focused laser beam, producing narrow, deep welds at high speeds.

Laser chemical vapor deposition

Laser chemical vapor deposition (LCVD) is a thin-film fabrication method in which a focused laser locally heats a substrate or excites precursor gases, enabling direct writing of microstructures.

Laser cladding

Laser cladding, also known as Laser Metal Deposition or Directed Energy Deposition, uses a laser to melt metal powder or wire onto a substrate as a dense, metallurgically bonded coating.

Laser communication in space, also known as free-space optical communication, transmits data between spacecraft and ground stations using laser beams, offering data rates 10 to 40 times higher than radio.

Laser Communication Terminal

A laser communication terminal is an optical transceiver on a satellite, aircraft, or ground platform that sends data at megabit to gigabit rates over laser beams across thousands of kilometers.

Laser Communications Relay Demonstration

The Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) is a NASA technology demonstration payload, hosted on STPSat-6 and launched in 2021, that demonstrates two-way laser communications.

Laser cutting

Laser cutting is a thermal, non-contact manufacturing process in which a focused laser beam melts or vaporizes material and a gas jet blows the molten material out of the cut.

Laser deposition

Laser deposition, or pulsed laser deposition, is a physical vapor deposition method in which a pulsed laser ablates a target to form a thin film on a substrate.

Laser designator

A laser designator is a device, carried by a soldier, vehicle, or aircraft, that paints a target with pulsed laser energy a guided weapon's seeker can home on.

Laser directed energy deposition

Laser directed energy deposition (L-DED), also called laser powder directed energy deposition, is a metal additive manufacturing method that builds parts layer by layer with a laser-melted powder or wire feedstock.

Laser doping

Laser doping is a semiconductor fabrication technique in which a pulsed laser locally melts silicon so dopants diffuse in, chiefly forming selective emitters under metal contacts in solar cells.

Laser Doppler vibrometry

Laser Doppler vibrometry (LDV) is a non-contact optical technique that measures surface vibration velocity and displacement by detecting the Doppler shift of laser light scattered from the moving surface.

Laser drilling

Laser drilling is a machining process that forms holes by vaporizing material with a focused pulsed laser beam, used where conventional drills struggle, such as micro-holes in hard materials.

Laser engraving

Laser engraving is a manufacturing process in which a focused laser beam removes surface material layer by layer, producing permanent recessed marks on metal, wood, acrylic, and other materials.

Laser enrichment

Laser enrichment is a family of uranium isotope separation methods using tunable lasers to selectively excite uranium-235 atoms or molecules, with AVLIS, MLIS, and SILEX the main approaches.

Oct 22, 2026

Laser foil printing

Laser foil printing is a metal additive manufacturing process that builds parts layer by layer from thin metal foils, developed at Missouri University of Science and Technology.

Laser guide star

A laser guide star is an artificial star created in the upper atmosphere by a laser projected from a telescope site, used as a reference for adaptive optics.

Laser hardening

Laser hardening, also called laser transformation hardening or laser quenching, is a surface heat treatment that hardens steel and cast iron with a scanning laser beam, commercialized in the 1970s.

Laser ignition

Laser ignition is a combustion-ignition method in which a focused pulsed laser beam creates a plasma spark in a fuel–air mixture, replacing the spark plug in engines and combustors.

Laser lithography

Laser lithography is a maskless microfabrication technique that uses a focused laser beam to pattern photoresists and substrates directly, from nanometer features to centimeter-scale 3D structures.