What characteristic describes a laser beam that focuses light into a tight beam?

A laser beam that concentrates light into a tight beam is characterized as collimated. Collimation refers to the process of aligning the light rays to travel parallel to each other, resulting in a narrow, focused beam with minimal divergence over a distance. This is crucial for various applications, including cutting, medical procedures, and optical communications, where precision and focus are essential.

While other characteristics such as monochromatic, coherent, and polarized are important attributes of laser light, they do not specifically describe the beam's focusing ability. Monochromatic indicates that the light consists of a single wavelength, coherent implies that the light waves are in phase, and polarized means that the light waves vibrate in a specific direction. None of these terms directly address the spatial alignment of the light rays that defines collimation.