It is probably not very well known, even by the people who have them, that breast implants have product information etched somewhere on their surface. For obvious reasons, manufacturers, regulators and recipients would prefer not to introduce ink into human bodies, so an alternative means of marking the product has to be found.

Enter the National Centre for Laser Applications in Galway. "With the amount of product innovation that's going on in the medical-device arena at the moment, there's a lot of process innovation too - often there's a laser route which would do the job more efficiently," says Tony Flaherty, research scientist with the NCLA.

"The advantage of the laser is that there is no contact with the device, so you can actually do the work in a sterile environment or under high temperatures or low temperatures," says his colleague Dr Alan Ryder, also a research scientist. "When you have no contact, you're not introducing anything extraneous into your medical device, which for the approval bodies makes it safer and quicker to grant approval."

Laser technology capable of work this delicate is only one aspect of the NCLA's work, but it indicates the extent to which lasers are entering our lives. From welding in shipyards - stainless steel is easy to weld with a laser - to marking computer keyboards, etching a high-quality logo on to a pen or drilling holes in angioplasty systems (used to inflate balloons in blocked arteries), lasers are rapidly becoming the tool of choice for a huge range of applications.

"It's becoming a very standard industrial tool," Flaherty says. "There are a lot of companies beginning to realise there is every opportunity to use a laser in their manufacturing process. That's why we're here. We're giving companies the information they need to apply lasers to their processes." The NCLA was founded in 1989, using a Forbairt grant, as a centre of excellence in laser technology. It is linked to the physics department at the University of Galway; undergraduate students can do laser-based projects in fourth year and the NCLA has a number of postgraduate students working with it. However, the NCLA also provides training for industry and access to state-of-the-art laser equipment and expertise. It also offers a sub-contracting service for laser marking, cutting and welding, engages in problem-solving for companies and carries out its own research.

For example, the NCLA is involved in developing a portable laser-based system to identify drugs. Using a process called Raman spectroscopy, scientists in the NCLA can already identify a drug without even removing it from its plastic wrapping - and determine the extent to which it has been "cut" by another substance. "You put a beam of light in at one frequency and some of the light is scattered at a slightly different frequency," Ryder says. "When we look at that light, we can get a vibrational spectrum which is unique to each molecule. Each spectrum is unique."

So each drug has a specific signature, and each spectrum can then be loaded into software which is capable of identifying drugs and compounds. "One of the advantages of Raman spectroscopy is that you don't have to do much sample preparation," Ryder says. "You can take a sample and run it straight off and get a result. You can have a polythene bag with a powder inside it, put it into your Raman spectrometer, focus through the polythene bag and take a spectrum of the drug inside the bag without even having to open. You can then say, yes, this is definitely is the drug - gardai can say we have identified the drug and it hasn't even been touched."

Ultimately, the NCLA would like to develop a portable system using diode lasers, for use by the Garda at the scene of a drug discovery.

Allied to this laser technology is the computer, since the laser requires computer support to perform its often delicate tasks. For example, the drug identification unit mentioned above would require - in its ideal, portable form - a laptop computer. "It is clear that many of the most exciting developments in scientific research will take place at the interface between optics and electronics," says Professor Tom Glynn, head of UG's physics department. "In effect, we're looking at a revolution in optical engineering."