Phaser emitteredit
From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference
A phaser emitter is a key component in starship and hand-held phasers. The emitter is equivalent to the "barrel of a gun", as it is the focal point where the phaser beam ("the bullet") is fired from.
[edit] Ship-mounted
From 2245 to 2270, ship mounted phaser emitters were built into the hulls of starfleet vessels and were operated in a control room by a small crew as a backup to bridge control. (TOS: "Balance of Terror")
In the 2270s phaser emitter designs had improved and the new design routed power directly from the warp engines which increased their effectiveness and strength. The only drawback was that if an antimatter imbalance occurred, the phasers would be automatically cut off. (Star Trek: The Motion Picture)
Ship-mounted emitters are typically arranged into phaser banks. The normal arrangement is one or two emitters to a bank. (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) Phaser banks and their emitters would later be replaced by Phaser arrays in the 24th century on more modern starships. Smaller vessels such as shuttlecraft and Maquis fighters continued to use phaser emitters however. (TNG: "The Outcast", TNG: "Preemptive Strike")
- According to the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, Phaser arrays such as the dorsal saucer section array of a Galaxy-class starship consists of 200 emitter segments.
In 2372, the deflector of the USS Defiant was modified to perform as a single-shot phaser emitter when the ship was under attack from a Jem'Hadar attack ship in the atmosphere of a class J gas giant. (DS9: "Starship Down")
In 2375, Nog, acting as a representative of Miles O'Brien, bought a phaser emitter from the USS Musashi in a convoluted trade that also involved the USS Sentinel, to eventually acquire a graviton stabilizer. (DS9: "Treachery, Faith and the Great River")
[edit] Hand-weapons
Phaser emitters form part of the main component of hand phasers.
