Technology

The basic principle underlying Luminorum’s technology - that light can be used to burn things - is far from new. Indeed, children have probably been setting fire to straw with magnifying glasses ever since lenses were first invented. And of course, the fact that a powerful laser will burn through almost any material has more recently become common knowledge thanks partly to countless science fiction books and films. The process known as subsurface laser engraving (SSLE) essentially represents a method to harness a laser’s energy and use it to burn images in solid materials with an astounding level of precision.  It forms the cornerstone of Luminorum’s approach to three-dimensional molecular modelling.

Here’s how it works:

We start by taking the atomic coordinates of a given protein, and translating them into an accurate representation of the molecule’s secondary, tertiary and quaternary structure using purpose-designed software. A green light laser is then fixed into position above a block of what is known as optical crystal - different from normal glass in that its density and melting points are higher (4.5, as opposed to 2.3, grammes per cubic centimetre, and 1970˚C rather than 1200˚C).  This block rests on a platform that can be moved in one. When the laser beam is focused through a lens at a specific point inside the crystal, it takes somewhere in the order of a millisecond to produce what is effectively a minute burn mark, with the appearance of a white dot.  The platform can be moved, or the beam’s trajectory adjusted using mirrors, to burn additional dots into the glass at different positions. It takes just a few minutes to generate a complete three-dimensional image of a protein using this process.

At Luminorum, we use what, to our knowledge, is the most sophisticated SSLE technology currently available for commercial purposes - and we believe that it shows in the quality of our products. The images you can see in our gallery, for instance, are made up of an extremely high number of dots (somewhere between a quarter of a million and a million), and each dot is smaller than those you’re likely to see in mass-produced crystals of the kind that contain images of cartoon animals or famous landmarks. The net effect is that you can be sure your protein image will be both beautiful and exceptionally sharp.