Table Top USP Lasers Slice, Dice, and So Much More

UltravioletLED writes "A company in Petaluma, California has developed highly programmable desktop lasers. The same devices used in hospitals could also be used to turn any metal surface black by simply changing the software. From the article: 'The technology once filled a large room at DARPA until Raydiance scientists made it into a compact, tabletop unit. Schuler (The CEO) said he hopes it will replace just about any cutting device you can think of, from a big metal saw to a precise surgical blade ... Now that it's a little bigger than a breadbox, researchers want to use them to kill tumors, identify friend or foe during combat, and even remove tattoos.' Femtosecond lasers for eye surgery have been around for years now, but these new lasers are far smaller and promise to have much greater versatility."

How do I build one?

[the_kanzure]

Does anyone know where I can go to learn to build my own desktop lasers? I have found Sam's laser FAQ [repairfaq.org] before, but surely there are other sources out there.

Re:Desktop Fabrication Applications Aplenty

[Ant P.]

That sounds like a great idea - you could have actual printed circuit boards instead of taking big slabs of metal and sticking them in vats of acid for half an hour. With a bit of tweaking they could omit the board entirely and have the circuit be a self-supporting 3D structure.

Re:Medical lasers

[Anonymous Coward]

I Am Not A Doctor, but my dad is a chief lab technician (or some such) at an NHS hospital in Britain. He doesn't work with anything like as sophisticated as this, but from what I hear of the culture there, there's very little emphasis on "open source". Apparently the centrifuges, spectrographs and the like employed there are all very proprietary, expensive, and locked to the manufacturer in the way of supplies. They're rather like inkjets. The initial equipment is very cheap, but the cartridges that shit comes in - I don't know what exactly, lubricant or reagents, things like that - are closed and complicated and overpriced. A big waste of taxpayer money, really. I imagine a similar approach is taken to the maintenance of them.

Of course, I'm essentially talking out of my ass here. If anyone has more accurate information I defer completely to them. And it's possible that experimental equipment like this is handled entirely differently, or that private American hospitals are different. But that's what I know.

Nothing can go wrong. It's controlled by software!

[Archtech]

"It can cut metal, heal burns and kill cancer tumors -- all without damaging heat.
"All you need is one of his ultrashort pulse, or USP, lasers, he said. To change the function, just change the software".

Hmmmm. So this laser can do different things. One moment, it's a deadly weapon. The next, it's a harmless cosmetic aid.

And which of these things it does will be determined by... software? Written and maintained by whom? With what sort of utterly foolproof user interface?

Can you say "Therac-25"?