Lasers are fascinating devices.

From alarm systems to laser guns and swords.

Lasers are fascinating devices. Just watch it, in every film where the hero has to do something difficult, a laser appears. From alarm systems to laser guns and swords. With a ‘Swooing’ you see a red laser beam fly by and with great violence there is a dent in a steel door. But light from the side is invisible. Light has to hit your eyes to see it and outside Hollywood, with our lasers, that means the end of your eyes.

Needless to say, I am a scientist and not always the best one to watch a film with. My name is Edwin Kroon and at LionLasers, my passion lies in efficiency. The more chores I can do at the same time the more time I have left for the fun stuff. As I type this, I have 2 different lasers placing a difficult engraving, so I am working for 3. This is very (bio)logical, nature does nothing else. A bird’s feather also does several things at once: it is hugely insulating, aerodynamically very efficient, water-repellent and also in the right (camouflage) colour.

I want our engravings, like our lasers, to also become multifunctional. Because a feather is made of keratin, just like head hair. And anyone with long hair can agree that it stays wet for quite a long time. So water repellency, ‘hydrophobic’ (hydro=water, phobia= fear/repellency) is not in the material, as it is for both keratin, but in the structure. So something that is not hydrophobic can be made hydrophobic by structure. And could you also turn this structure around so that it attracts water? En zou je deze structuur ook om kunnen draaien zodat het water aantrekt?

From my studies in animal science, I already knew that animals already use these nanostructures for additional functions besides hydrophobia/hydrophilia. For example, hairs to stick to glass (Gecko), needles to kill bacteria (butterfly), fins to change the colour of light (kingfisher/peacock) and a honeycomb structure against condensation (mosquito).
By imitating these structures with the laser, I can take the effects to another material so I don’t find a clogged shower drain in the morning, don’t slip on a frozen street and never have to scratch my car window again.

To develop multifunctional engraving as quickly and well as possible, I work closely with a number of universities and colleges. Thanks to their electron microscope, I can see to the nearest 0.0001mm what the laser is doing. And because I can see that, they can develop a pancreas-on-a-chip and diabetes will soon be a thing of the past. Just for comparison, a human hair is 0.2-0.6mm thick.
This can only be achieved if the laser is accurate and precise to the extreme, in addition to reliable. And I get that because, thanks in part to electron microscope photos, I can consult with the machine builders and designers directly and explain what I need. And this is only possible at LionLasers.

Apart from all future possibilities, all these experiments today ensure that anyone buying a LionLaser only has to push the ‘start’ button and not spend hours searching or experimenting among the billions of possible setting combinations. If a laser were a car, a LionLaser is a car with a Dutch driver.