What is a laser? And how does it work?

Answer

The answer lies not so much in the power of the laser, but in another property called coherence.
The bottom line is that all photons in a laser beam are identical to each other (wavelength, phase, …) so that a light beam from a laser is much less fanned out than light from a non-coherent source (virtually all other sources such as lamps, LEDs, etc.). …). The light power of the laser therefore remains concentrated at a greater distance in a small surface, so that locally the light is much more intense.