The ~laser~ is a coherent beam of light used in many |peripheral devices|. In the |CD-ROM drive|, the laser reads the digital data on the recording surface. In the read/write, magneto-optic drive, the laser is used to heat the recording surface to its ~Curie temperature~, enabling a magnetic |read/write head| (with an internal ~bias coil~) to alter the data at the heated site. The laser also requires an array of collimating and focusing lenses and a beam splitting prism to direct the laser beam precisely along the media's surface.
