"Colorizing Metals With Femtosecond Laser Pulses"
 

This is cool and has many applications, especially with cars!

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1201894520.jpg
From left, aluminum turned a gold color, titanium turned to blue, and platinum turned gold.

Excerpt:
"In a feat of optical alchemy, Dr. Guo, a professor of optics at the University of Rochester, and Anatoliy Y. Vorobyev, a postdoctoral researcher, use ultrashort laser bursts to pockmark the surface of a metal in a way that is not perceptible to the touch — it still feels smooth to the finger — but that alters how the metal absorbs and reflects light."

NYT Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/science/31metal.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Slashdot discussion:
http://science.slashdot.org/science/08/02/01/1615253.shtml

Original paper for purchase:
http://link.aip.org/link/?APPLAB/92/041914/1

FYI.

Best,

Kurt

Nice, no more Orange Peel.

Yeah, but try buffing out a scratch...

A fender bender will now be a guaranteed total loss.

Very cool though. Other, non-automotive applications (such as architectural finishes) come to mind. Think of the patterns you could build into continuous, unbroken panels of metal without paint, joints or seams. Pretty neat.

I'm thinking as a replacement for industrial coating. Put a small layer of metal on, then hit it with the laser. It will never peel, even under high heat. Might be the real use for this.

Makes sense. I wonder if it could be done to provide lower-friction coatings and things like that.

Very cool idea in any case.

Seems like it would be competing against color anodizing, but it also seems like the Femtosecond laser process might eventually be cheaper and simpler than anodizing . . . and provide a higher degree of creativity.

Doesn't anodizing add a harder layer? I wonder if the laser method adds hardness.

Best,

Kurt