Put aside for the moment the question of why you would put spectacles on a housefly and consider how you would do it. First, of course, you'd have to make the specs. Micreon GmbH, of Hannover, Germany, used a pulsed titanium-sapphire laser to fashion the tiny eyewear, in a sleek style so fashionable at the moment. Günter Kamlage, a mechanical engineer and cofounder of Micreon, says the laser pulses, just femtoseconds long, cut the glasses out of a thin, tiny sheet of tungsten. They measure only 2 millimeters from temple to temple; note Micreon's logo etched on the nose bridge. The difficult part was placing them on the insect, which was quite dead. Basically, they used really small tweezers and a microscope, Kamlage says, and it took almost two weeks, because the glasses kept sliding off the fly's face. The publicity stunt was conceived a year ago by Kamlage's wife, Beatrix, to demonstrate the precision possible with femtosecond lasers.
Phone Keyboard Exploits Leave 1 Billion Users Exposed
Popular Chinese-language keyboard apps reveal leaky security standards
29 Apr 2024
An Engineer Who Keeps Meta’s AI infrastructure Humming
Susana Contrera helps build the infrastructure for the company’s AI-research data centers
29 Apr 2024
Solar Fuel Production Just Needs a Change in Direction
Photoelectrodes that move electric charge diagonally split water better
29 Apr 2024
Electronically Assisted Astronomy on the Cheap
Take surprisingly detailed images of the heavens with budget hardware
28 Apr 2024
Will Human Soldiers Ever Trust Their Robot Comrades?
The Pentagon’s “trust engineers” are probing warfighters’ attitudes
27 Apr 2024
As Ukraine Builds New Reactors, Renewables Beckon
Wind turbines and gas-fired generators are easy to build and hard to target
26 Apr 2024
Travels with Perplexity AI
Generative search wouldn’t exist without the Internet Bob Kahn helped create
26 Apr 2024
This IEEE Society’s Secret to Boosting Student Membership
The budding engineers serve on its boards and have voting privileges
25 Apr 2024
Why Haven’t Hoverbikes Taken Off?
Physics aside, personal flying craft's rotors pose huge safety risks
25 Apr 2024
IEEE Spectrum
FOR THE TECHNOLOGY INSIDER
Topics
More
For IEEE Members
For IEEE Members
Support IEEE Spectrum
IEEE Spectrum is the flagship publication of the IEEE — the world’s largest professional organization devoted to engineering and applied sciences. Our articles, podcasts, and infographics inform our readers about developments in technology, engineering, and science.
Support IEEE Spectrum
IEEE Spectrum is the flagship publication of the IEEE — the world’s largest professional organization devoted to engineering and applied sciences. Our articles, podcasts, and infographics inform our readers about developments in technology, engineering, and science.