You obviously have to seek them out, but 10W lasers aren't that prohibitively expensive. Most of the expense and specialization in those physics lasers go into the combination of 'attosecond' and high power. Getting short pulse lasers at high powers is very hard due to material non-linearities and it essentially burning itself in it's own laser cavity. CO2 lasers and other laser just specialized in burning things aren't nearly that expensive.
Who the fuck has 10W lasers at home? That’s the kind of stuff my local attosecond physics department uses.
According to a quick search, anybody with 200 dollars they want to burn without leaving forensic evidence
Pyrostyro, a mad lad in the Midwest suburbs with military grade lasers he assembled in his garage
You obviously have to seek them out, but 10W lasers aren't that prohibitively expensive. Most of the expense and specialization in those physics lasers go into the combination of 'attosecond' and high power. Getting short pulse lasers at high powers is very hard due to material non-linearities and it essentially burning itself in it's own laser cavity. CO2 lasers and other laser just specialized in burning things aren't nearly that expensive.