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Published online 2 March 2000 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news000302-11
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Microsculpture made easy
Philip Ball reports on a cheap, fast and versatile way of riddling a material with holes to make sure light can't get through.
Using laser beams to write patterns into a plastic at a scale smaller than the eye can see, a group of British researchers has developed a new, cheap way of making porous materials called 'photonic crystals', which are impenetrable to light of certain wavelengths.
The new technique is a type of freeform fabrication: a hands-off sculpture with which solid materials can be fashioned into complicated structures.
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