Peacock Feathers Can Be Lasers (science.org) 29
sciencehabit shares a report from Science.org: Peacocks have a secret hidden in their brightly colored tail feathers: tiny reflective structures that can amplify light into a laser beam. After dyeing the feathers and energizing them with an external light source, researchers discovered they emitted narrow beams of yellow-green laser light. They say the study, published this month in Scientific Reports, offers the first example of a laser cavity in the animal kingdom. [...]
Scientists have long known that peacock feathers also exhibit "structural color" -- nature's pigment-free way to create dazzling hues. Ordered microstructures within the feathers reflect light at specific frequencies, leading to their vivid blues and greens and iridescence. But Florida Polytechnic University physicist Nathan Dawson and his colleagues wanted to go a step further and see whether those microstructures could also function as a laser cavity. After staining the feathers with a common dye and pumping them with soft pulses of light, they used laboratory instruments to detect beams of yellow-green laser light that were too faint to see with the naked eye. They emerged from the feathers' eyespots, at two distinct wavelengths. Surprisingly, differently colored parts of the eyespots emitted the same wavelengths of laser light, even though each region would presumably vary in its microstructure.
Just because peacock feathers emit laser light doesn't mean the birds are somehow using this emission. But there are still ramifications, Dawson says. He suggests that looking for laser light in biomaterials could help identify arrays of regular microstructures within them. In medicine, for example, certain foreign objects -- viruses with distinct geometric shapes, perhaps -- could be classified and identified based on their ability to be lasers, he says. The work also demonstrates how biological materials could one day yield lasers that could be put safely into the human body to emit light for biosensing, medical imaging, and therapeutics. "I always like to think that for many technological achievements that benefit humans," Dawson says, "some organism somewhere has already developed it through some evolutionary process."
Scientists have long known that peacock feathers also exhibit "structural color" -- nature's pigment-free way to create dazzling hues. Ordered microstructures within the feathers reflect light at specific frequencies, leading to their vivid blues and greens and iridescence. But Florida Polytechnic University physicist Nathan Dawson and his colleagues wanted to go a step further and see whether those microstructures could also function as a laser cavity. After staining the feathers with a common dye and pumping them with soft pulses of light, they used laboratory instruments to detect beams of yellow-green laser light that were too faint to see with the naked eye. They emerged from the feathers' eyespots, at two distinct wavelengths. Surprisingly, differently colored parts of the eyespots emitted the same wavelengths of laser light, even though each region would presumably vary in its microstructure.
Just because peacock feathers emit laser light doesn't mean the birds are somehow using this emission. But there are still ramifications, Dawson says. He suggests that looking for laser light in biomaterials could help identify arrays of regular microstructures within them. In medicine, for example, certain foreign objects -- viruses with distinct geometric shapes, perhaps -- could be classified and identified based on their ability to be lasers, he says. The work also demonstrates how biological materials could one day yield lasers that could be put safely into the human body to emit light for biosensing, medical imaging, and therapeutics. "I always like to think that for many technological achievements that benefit humans," Dawson says, "some organism somewhere has already developed it through some evolutionary process."
Obligatory warning (Score:5, Funny)
Do not look into peacock with remaining eye.
Re: (Score:2)
On the bright side, now we know what *really* happened to the dodo!
It wasn't hunting; but rather that they annoyed the peacocks and suffered the consequences . . .
Sharks? (Score:2)
Maybe in some universe, there will be sharks with frickin' laser beams on their heads.
Re:Sharks? (Score:5, Funny)
Sharks with frik'n peacocks on their heads...
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It's peacocks all the way down!
Peacocks with frick'n laser beams. (Score:2)
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Well, what if you scale it up? Harness a large number of peacocks, and aim them somehow at a target? You could build the first environment-friendly laser CIWS, also mostly maintenance-free. Imagine a ballistic missile worth hundred of millions of dollars shot by [insert rogue dictatorship here], downed by a cluster of peacocks. The face that [insert rogue dictatorship leader here] would make upon hearing the news. The heads of the generals rolling. Why didn't my missile destroy [insert valuable objective he
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I think it would be easier and deadlier for the target to build a guano bomber fleet.
Re:So, what's the use of this? (Score:4, Funny)
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They've got some serious claws on their feet, as well as spurs.
Do some cross breeding with wild turkeys to up the attitude levels, or go for broke and bring in some cassowary genes...
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Re: So, what's the use of this? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Well, what if you scale it up? Harness a large number of peacocks, and aim them somehow at a target? You could build the first environment-friendly laser CIWS, also mostly maintenance-free. Imagine a ballistic missile worth hundred of millions of dollars shot by [insert rogue dictatorship here], downed by a cluster of peacocks. The face that [insert rogue dictatorship leader here] would make upon hearing the news. The heads of the generals rolling. Why didn't my missile destroy [insert valuable objective here]? What do you mean, *peacocks*? Is that some kind of joke, Herr General? You know we don't like joking much around here, hmm? And as an added bonus, in times of peace, you can eat your laser defense.
Archimedes should have used peacocks instead of polished bronze mirrors.
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Who knows! That's how all early research works. Scientists learn things that have no obvious application. But one day, somebody will put the pieces together.
When Einstein developed his quantum theory, there was no obvious use for this mathematical model. But now, engineers are starting to learn how to use the principles to accomplish things like quantum computing, which can perform types of tasks no other computer can perform.
The future will tell what might come of this research.
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Excellent analogy there except
1. Einstein didn't "develop quantum theory", Planck, Born, Bohr, Heisenberg, de Broglie, Bose, Fermi and Schrödinger did, Einstein and others contributing. Then Hilbert (actually Noether, while serving Hilbert tea), von Neumann and Dirac hammered it down formally.
2. Quantum mechanics was immediately useful.
3. Quantum computing can compute so few very specific tasks that it is practically irrelevant, and likely to stay like that forever.
4. Dipping vaguely resonator-like obj
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I get it that you put some small amount of organic dye into some structure that has mirrors and that it shows stimulated fluorescence and perhaps amplification that produces beam of low power and terrible quality.
So what?
We now have our genetic engineering task laid out for us -- develop peacocks that have fluorescent dye in their feathers naturally (if something generically engineered can be called "natural").
Re: (Score:2)
But what about the resonator type and parameters?
Losers (Score:2)
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Peacocks (Score:2)
Now we know why dozens of peacocks have been taken from an Hotel near Sacramento .
Re: (Score:2)
taken from an Hotel
by an Hero?
A new supervillain (Score:2)
They blind the people in the bank while robbing it... (and the CCTVs, as well)
A new threat (Score:2)
It's the bees and the spiders (Score:2)
Why does the porridge bird lay his egg in the air?
Why do sharks peacocks laser HONK delay at the fair?
Obvious to a skilled practitioner (Score:2)
Just for history's sake, it's obvious that mimicking these cavities on a nanoscale chip could be very useful in optical computing.
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