“Low power” lasers are sometimes wildly more powerful than they claim to be. I guess what do you expect when you buy a Chinese laser pointer on Amazon for 5 bucks.
Nd:YAG lasers such as the one in the article use an IR exciter into a crystal to achieve frequency doubling or tripling. Much of the energy from the fundamental exciter makes it past the crystal, so without good filtering, a "safe" class 2 or 3R laser can still produce blinding (but invisible) light. Lots of the cheap lasers don't have good filtering, so be careful what you buy.
Don't forget that the power rating of a laser pointer (unlike literally every other type of light you buy) is the output power, not the input power! More importantly, it's the output power of only the green laser!
The 1064nm exciter laser is pumped by an 808nm pump laser, and based on what I know about how inefficient lasers are, I can guarantee that those beams are way more powerful than the output beam! If those leak because the manufacturer cheaped out on filters, those lasers mat not visible, but they are still dangerous!
