The World's Smallest Jigsaw Puzzle Piece

An anonymous reader writes "Scientists from the Laser Zentrum Hannover used a femtosecond laser to make what is probably the world's smallest jigsaw which will be shown at the Hannover Messe. Its size is 5mm x 5mm and it consists of 100 parts. It's supposed to demonstrate the precision with which femtosecond lasers can cut materials without burning or damaging them. (Closeup 1, Closeup 2)"

is it just me

[tolan-b]

or is 5mm not really very small?

(also..fp! heh)

Re:is it just me

[momerath2003]

It is when it's split into 100 interlocking pieces.

Re:is it just me

[whathappenedtomonday]

the whole piece is 5 x 5 mm, approx. 3/16"
the 100 pieces are said to be of dust grain size (now handle that - and don't you sneeze!).
its extremely short pulses (1 Femtosec. = 10e-15 sec.) make this a great tool for cutting materials without damaging or burning them.

Re:is it just me

[Artega VH]

Well its half a centimeter along each edge obviously.

With 10 pieces along each edge, (If you look at the picture they are pretty much square) then each piece has the width of 0.05cm or 0.0005m which for me is pretty tiny.

But the most impressive thing is that the laser is able to cut this substance while not destroying it.

Re:is it just me

[morcheeba]

I am horrible at converting number distances to something I can conceptualize, so here's an example for others like me:

Each piece is about 0.5mm x 0.5mm square, the same size as the diameter of the lead in my mechanical pencil.

That's Terrific...

[yabbo]

As if people didn't have enough trouble as it is keeping track of jig-saw pieces! "I think I found the corner piece...get me my electron microscope!"

Re:That's Terrific...

[elecbrick]

Forget the electron microscope, any jeweler accustomed to working on mechanical watches should be right at home with this. Of course, there may not be many jewelers accustomed to working on mechanical watches left any more.

Oh yeah, this is Slashdot.

Anyone who can hand solder surface mount components should feel right at home. For example, SSOP ICs have 250 um wide pins centered 650 um apart.

waiting for version 2.0

[Polo]

That is indeed a small puzzle, but...

why did they make all the pieces almost 100% alike? Jigsaw puzzles aren't supposed to have interchangeable pieces. Each piece should be somewhat unique.

Well, not all is lost... at least the pieces seem to have a little texture...

Re:waiting for version 2.0

[DonnieD701]

I've done a couple of puzzles where EVERY piece is the exact same shape. You have to build the puzzle matching the picture. It makes it more difficult. I've also assembled puzzles upside down, not using the picture at all... You want to spend time cursing while building puzzles, try one of the 3-D ones.. This is impressive in my book. 100 pieces out of 5x5mm?

Re:waiting for version 2.0

[mikehuntstinks]

Well it's not actually a jigsaw puzzle. It's a femosecond laser puzzle. I think all laser puzzles have different rules.

Loss of mass?

[sithkhan]

I used Google to translate the text, and nowhere is a mention of loss of mass mentioned. Given that these are small materials to begin with, how much mass is consumed in this process? The pics show pieces that are not snug. Just a thought ...

Re:Loss of mass?

[Smidge204]

Just looking at the picture, the cuts seem to be about 1/20th the width of the piece, with 9 cuts in each direction plus a little extra for the lobes... that works out to about one whole row of piece worth of material removed (figure somewhat uniform density and thickness) (9 + 9 = 18 + a little extra = 20, line is 1/20th width of piece and full width)

So 10 piece gone and 100 remaining, which comes out to about 10% loss.
=Smidge=

Jeez

[tzanger]

And I thought I had problems dropping a normal jigsaw puzzle piece on the carpet before...

Depth?

[cornjchob]

OK, it can cut through paper with that accuracy and didn't destory it--I'm impressed. However, how deep would a laser like this be able to penetrate before it would be rendered impotent/would start destroying the material? Or isn't that relevant because of the apps this would be used in?

Re:Depth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Laser penetration depends on two factors. First being the divergence of the beam. A good laser will have that measured in milliradians, which makes it useable for hundreds of meters.

The second is the amount of time you want to spend cutting. Deeper takes longer.

Given time you could cut the same 5mm square jigsaw out of a piece of paper 10 meters thick.

Re:Depth?

[NeMon'ess]

Without scortching or burning the top of the puzzle? Sorry I know jack about if lasers heat the surrounding air which could heat the paper.

Re:Depth?

[Shurhaian]

Cutting lasers don't actually cut using heat; they use the momentum of light. Arguably, if you cut from the side and go slow, you could shave into it so gently that heat loss doesn't become an issue.

If it's in a sensitive context, you'd probably want to perform this in a low-pressure or inert-gas environment for other reasons. Clean air shouldn't significantly scatter the laser light at any distance until the dispersal becomes significant.

Punching a hole into the middle of something is, I think, a more di

cool

[scrap104]

hmm... is there a Pentium version of this puzzle?

Pentium creates a missing piece?

[Roman_(ajvvs)]

what? you mean a puzzle with 99 pieces instead of 100?

I can imagine the scenario already:
"Why are you sifting through the A/C filter?"
"I sneezed while I was doing my mini-jigsaw.."

Damn..

[adeyadey]

Where did I put that piece of sky..

The most important applications...

[eagle52997]

Are in spectroscopy...the probing of molecular and atomic electron structure, and bonding [cam.ac.uk] and such. Femtosecond lasers are so important because of the time over which they can emit a burst of same frequency photons. That short time allows the laser to be cutoff, and for the detection equipment to measure the response from the molecule/atom, which in most cases is a few hundred femtoseconds long (although longer responses exist...hence fluorescence [m-w.com] and phosporescence [m-w.com]).

Another big impact for these lasers