A different way to color metal — with a laser?

Hazel Wheaton — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:46:00 GMT

Here at Art Jewelry, we're currently in the very final stages of preparing the July issue for publication — it gets shipped off to the printers this week, and our readers will have it in their hands in early June. Among the projects in this issue, we've got a tutorial on anodizing titanium by Noel Yovovich, so I've been reading up on the technique and on other ways to color metal.

In my reading, I came across a news story that I had missed the first time around. It appeared in the New York Times in January, and it's fascinating. Two researchers in the physics department at the University of Rochester have been hitting different metals with short — very short, we're talking millionths of a billionth of a second — laser bursts. By playing with the variables — strength, length, number — of the bursts, the researchers can vary the resulting color of the metal. They're making aluminum look like gold, titanium and tungsten look deep blue, and gold look "blacker than the usual black."

What I find fun and endearing is the honest surprise on the part of the physicists that jewelry makers, of all people, are latching onto their work. One of the researchers, Dr. Chunlei Guo, is quoted in the article as saying, "They are actually indeed interested in making colored jewelry.”

Imagine that!

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A different way to color metal — with a laser?