Cut Curiously Precise Holes With Femto-Lasers

paymenow points out "this story at Science News Online about femto-lasers and how their novel 'cutting physics' allows much more precision than previous lasers. The technology is now finding applications in various industries including, biotech, automotive and laser eye surgery."

Comments

Cool use for diabetics and hospitals

[phamlen]

According to the article, the scientist demonstrated that the laser could cut his hand without causing pain!

Heck, if they could make it cheap enough, that would be great in hospitals. Can you imagine if patients didn't need to be constantly pricked for blood?

-Peter

Re:Cool use for diabetics and hospitals

[GigsVT]

There is sort of an inherent problem with that. If the hole is too small to even hit any nerve endings, it's probably too small to let blood cells through.

As it is, when my late grandmother was getting up in years, we had to prick her like three times with the heavy setting on the lanclet just to get blood.

No sick jokes, I know you are comtemplating them! :)

Heheh

[CableModemSniper]

Bring on the laser pistols. Slice off someone's arm they dont even notice because there is no pain. Awesome.

Pulse Speed = Nanoscale Destruction?

[WeaponOfChoice]

Would increasing the pulse speed by 1kx have any effect upon the surrounding material, destructive effects that is. I realise that the pulses are fantastically short but surely going from a thousand fempto pulses a second (roughly 1 trillionth of a second on target) to a million (roughly 1 billionth of a second on target) should negate at least some of the benefits by dint of there being a shorter gap between the pulses to allow the highly ionised material to clear out. This didn't seem to be mentioned in the article so perhaps it's not an issue...

Femto lasers?

[polyphemus-blinder]

Are those the kind that come out of hot chicks' boobs in Austin Powers?

Figures....

[KillerBob]

An even lighter touch is evident in recent work that demonstrates the femtosecond laser's potential for gene therapy. In the July 18 Nature, Uday K. Tirlapur and Karsten König of Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany, described vaporizing tiny spots in the membranes of rodent cells immersed in a solution containing the gene for a fluorescent protein. The cells quickly repaired the holes--but not before the genes had apparently sneaked in, yielding cells that appeared normal except for their green glow

All the technology in the world, and what do they use it for? To make glow-in-the-dark rats.

Re:Application to optical storage?

[theedge318]

As a "math/science geek" who is dating an "optics geek" ... i can tell you this "femto-burning" is USELESS for increasing the data storage capacity of DVD/CDs. The constricting factor is the laser's wavelength. The laser's wavefront has a size that is propotional to the wavelength.

Since a laser can't "see" objects (i.e. read data pits) smaller than the wavelength, computer chips are manufactured using Extreme-UltraViolet (EUV) lasers. However, size and $$$ are the current limiting factors for transitioning EUV to the desktop transition.

Layering seems to be the way to go with getting more data on a disc (see a previous /. article on getting 87GB on a disc)

Re:Can this ever be cheap?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Um ... according to the article, it's already in use for many applications: precise machining, removing cheap defects, LASIK surgery. If you're asking, "When can I get a femtosecond laser at home to carve cool designs on my cat," that might be a different story.