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Femtosecond Lasers Used To Color Metals
Maximum Prophet writes "An optics professor and a postgrad have developed a way to use ultra-short pulses of laser light to etch nano features into the surface of metals so that they can absorb or reflect specific wavelengths of light. This is very similar to the way that butterflies get the color in their wings."
wow, butterflies use high energy lasers to get the color on their wings!?!? now, we have to worry about lasers in the hands of the insects...
...use lasers? Scary!
Blank until
Perhaps the end to automotive paint?? Just throw clear coat over the chagned metal...
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
without using the word "overlords?"
Welcome our new femtosecond laser wielding butterfly overlords.
If you haven't made a developer cry, you've wasted a day.
I just saw this on the back of a Butterfly collectors tee-shirt, "If you can read this and you see me running, try to keep up."
Are they ill tempered?
As an artist I find this highly interesting. I'm always looking for new mediums to work with, and I certainly hope this becomes easy enough to work with where I can experiment with it. I'm sure it would open up a whole host of new ideas for creative avenues.
There's no way in hell a butterfly has the discipline to set still while being laser-etched.
From the article: "With his black metal finding, Dr. Guo suggested the possibility of black gold rings." and "The golden aluminum follows work a little more than year ago where Drs. Guo and Vorobyev reported that they could make gold and other metals look black -- indeed a black that is blacker than the usual black, sucking up almost all light that impinged upon it." I think that would make a really sweet ring and would definitely wear one! I'm not sure about as a wedding band though...
...of linking to a story which you need to register to read? Could anyone please copy and paste it?
What a coincidence http://www.xkcd.com/378/
...Ultra-short pulses of laser light to etch nano features into the surface of metals so that they can absorb or reflect specific wavelengths of light.This is very similar to the way that butterflies get the color in their wings. And there I was thinking it had something to do with cocoons.
You don't have to worry to much, as the butterflies only have access to short-wave lasers... P.S. The Gloom Wing Moth (reference: Page 157 of the AD&D 2nd edition Monster Manual) is something that should bring fear to your adventures!!!!
see "Femto" and think of the guy from the Berserk manga? Just curious.
Sure baby, I'll give you my phone number...in Hex
Their current technology can only generate various shades of silver.
Friend Computer wishes to know.
If you haven't made a developer cry, you've wasted a day.
the laser (preferably moon-based) to burn a HOLE in the metal
unless Euro 1,000,000,000,000 is delivered to my bunker by Feb. 2, 2008.
Criminally Forever,
"President" George W. Bush
No one EVER suspects the butterfly...
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
I wonder if this will work outside the range of visible light: up into ultraviolet or down to infrared wavelengths.
It might be a novel way to unobtrusively mark equipment or vehicles with permanent serial numbers or some kind of identification method for recognition by, say, machine vision, but which would not be visible to the unaided eye.
For robots to begin work in our everyday world, I feel that at first they are going to need some special markers around the house and office to help them recognize important objects more easily - this could be a very efficient and elegant way to accomplish just that.
Read my Very Short "Stories"
.. but when I see things like "professor and a postgrad have developed", I assume that the postgrad did all the work and the professor took most of the credit.
Just thought that was funny. I have no useful comment.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
...that's what's goin' on in those cocoons.
I ate a CD once. It tasted nothing like Skittles.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Nor sharks...
Err... goes to 11!!! more black.
Can transparent aluminum be far behind?
G.Lippman got the nobel prize in the naughties for having developed such a process for color photography using interferometric techniques reminding of holography. People at the time said that the color pictures looked like butterfly wings. Link : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lippmann_plate
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
"whatcouldpossiblygowrong" tag! Come on! They're giving lasers to butterflies!
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If it is reasonably tough, this might be good for coloring jewelry used in body piercing.
Forget the sharks !
Let's make an army of butterflies with freakin' femto lasers on their head and take over the world with them.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Quick Poll:
Did the poster and/or editor intentionally make the ambiguous statement about butterflies, knowing that it would lead to a discussion 80% about laser-wielding butterflies, with real article-related content left to battle with the usual jokes/OT garbage/etc for the remaining 20% of comments?
Possible Answers:
() Yes, and it's awesome.
() Yes, and it sucks.
() No, but it's awesome.
() No, and it sucks.
() CowboyNeal forced them to.
Great. Once the Canadian Mint hears about this, they'll colour our coins along with the bills. Green quarters, blue dimes, pink nickels, it's going to be ridiculous.
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/23/231259 Dupes are proof it's not vaporware!
Does this mean I get color lightscribe? :)
Call me a skeptic, but I find it hard to believe that surface etching can cause the photon absorption characteristics of the material to change, a property which has more to do with the atomic structure of the material than its gross features. This leads me to believe that the color properties of the material are probably due to anisotropic reflection - meaning that the difference between "light" and "dark" between frequencies is the difference between "reflective" and "matte". Therefore, the intensity of the color produced by this method is limited by some mean function of available light, viewing angle, and the minimum feature size - which is limited by the material and not by the laser being used. Therefore, I would expect a material like gold, which exceptional stability to have the most intense colors providable by this method, which is a bit ironic, considering the subject of the article. I don't see General Lee Orange "painted by laser" onto a 1969 Dodge Charger any time soon.
... colored tinfoil hats.
Maybe we could use micropulsed lasers to etch an iridescent clue into the posters skull that hitting a link to RTFA and getting a registration-required NY Times page is like hearing the doorbell ring, opening the front door, and discovering a burning sack of dog poo on the porch.
Hmm, I wonder whether I could get him to apply the process to my MacBook Pro? If he manages to get the technique to colour metal in industrial quantity that could be amazing.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
It might be cheaper given the cost of disposing of hazardous waste associated with conventional painting processes
Because the health and environmental problems cause expenses for body shops and manufacturers (like needing to give employees expensive respirators, special filters, etc)...paint companies have been going to more and more eco-friendly painting systems.
Improvements are both in equipment and the paint systems themselves. HVLP (High Volume Low Pressure) guns came out at least a decade ago and are much more efficient and have less overspray. Paints have gone through multiple "generations" of improvements with much lower VOC contents (Volatile Organic Compound.) Some are even water based.
Please help metamoderate.
If he can figure out the right permutation to absorb radar or have radar waves cancel themselves out, then the military may be interested.
would be very easy to repair color scratches - just a quick blast of the laser, and coor is matched again. A lile clear coat over the whole thing will protect it. Since this is "thinner" than paint - I have a feeling that it might "scratch" easier than regular paint.
..........FULL STOP.
Paint.
Have gnu, will travel.
Maaco to turn my DeLorean fluorescent blue.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
tastes like a rainbow, stings like a bee
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Sorry for all the spelling typos - dang thing keeps on dropping letters
..........FULL STOP.
One word replies usually get moderated insightful.
... most cars don't disappear when hitting 88 mph
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Very cool... I guess this effect isn't just for Titanium anymore! ...that is, if he can find a way to choose the colour on other metals at some point...
this may be a case where the Cowboy Neal option is actually correct.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Deathklok was unavailable for comment, citing trouble with a rare similing disorder on behalf of their bassist.
I think they'd better have a clear coat of some form or else the finish will turn a brilliant rust-colored orange after experiencing contact with moisture. Stainless steel and aluminum also oxidize, but not to the extent of mild steel. Such oxidation would probably be sufficient to dull the color significantly.
http://smoke.rotten.com/bird/ouch.jpg
Sure. Your "shoulder" or "arm". Riiiigh...
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Not that there's anything wrong with owning a p3n15 b1rd.
I'm wondering about if one could make a very thin metal sheet (almost gold leaf thinness), use the laser technology to etch whatever color is desired, break the sheet up into a powder, then use the powder + a clear solution to hold it in. This should make a workable metallic paint in whatever colors are wanted.