A pulsed laser emits light in short bursts instead of a steady beam. That means its average power can look modest while its peak power during each pulse is much higher. In practice, pulse width and repetition rate matter as much as wattage because they determine how much energy lands in a tiny time window.
In cyber security, pulsed lasers matter in physical and cyber-physical attacks and defenses. Attackers may use brief, intense pulses to blind cameras, confuse optical sensors, or inject faults into photodiodes, receivers, or other light-sensitive hardware. Defenders evaluate pulse behavior to set detection thresholds, add shielding and filtering, and design systems that reject sudden optical bursts. The key lesson is that a laser’s risk is not defined by size alone, but by how its energy is delivered.