Did someone post this already? http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/25jul_colloids.htm?list818490
"...Now researchers at Harvard University have developed a new way of steering and manipulating light beams. "Using droplets of liquid crystals--the same substance in laptop displays--the scientists can make a pane of glass that quickly switches from transparent to diffracting and back again. When the pane is transparent a laser beam passes straight through, but when the pane is diffracting, it splits the beam, bending it in several new directions. "The change is triggered by applying an electric field, so the pane could easily be controlled by the electric signals of a computer, offering a powerful new way to steer beams of light... "...A technique invented by Weitz and his colleagues produces equal-sized droplets of liquid crystal, each about a dozen microns across (a micron is one thousandth of a millimeter). Because they're all the same size, packing the droplets together on a glass plate causes them to arrange themselves into a honeycomb pattern. "It's this regular pattern that gives sheets of liquid crystal droplets their light-steering ability... "..."The big difference between what we do and what has been done before is that older-style glass panes contain a random distribution of drops and drop sizes--tiny ones and big ones. They're not ordered at all," explains Darren Link, one of the scientists on the research team. "Without any order in the drop size and spacing, these older liquid crystal systems simply scatter light in all directions--hence the frosted-glass effect. ""In our case, because we make all the drops the same size, we're able to steer light in specific directions," Link says..." At the bottom of this article are links to more technical ones. Debbi __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
