An overview of the IEC 835-1 standard for laser and LED products and their use

The IEC Standard 825-1 is the pre-eminent international laser safety standard. Although initially intended only as a manufacturer’s system-safety, product performance standard, it has grown as well in acceptance as an authoritative source for information on safe use of lasers. Emphasis in revisions of this standard has, however, centered on manufacturer’s requirements, the definition of laser hazard classes, and measurement procedures for classification. The initial standard, IEC 825 was first published in 1984 and drew heavily on the American National Standard ANSI Z-136.1 and the US Federal Performance Standard for Laser Products (21CFR1040). Although the IEC standard has evolved, the basic philosophy and most requirements remain unchanged. The only significant changes have resulted from new scientific data, for clarification or the need to change a clearly needless requirement which has plagued either manufacturers or users. The most significant change that took place with the second edition of the standard (i.e., IEC 825-1) has been to include LEDs as if they were lasers. This fundamental change was made at the final meeting prior to voting on the new edition. Consequently, an adequate review of the impact upon applications, underlying assumptions in the MPEs and AELs, and classification measurement had not been fully studied. As a result, the major activity of IEC TC-76 during the last three meetings has been in attempting to correct problems arising from the inclusion of LEDs in the same standard. Today, IEC TC-76 has been working to develop nested sub-classes to account for the wide range of risk presented by LEDs and lasers. This has led to proposals for Classes 1A and 1B to provide a class based upon a worst-case risk analysis (1A) and a “reasonably foreseeable” definition (1B). Other sub-classes have been proposed as well.