All Rights Reserved: This image belongs to the photographer (Trevor Riedemann). If you wish to use it for any purpose, you'll need to obtain written permission from the photographer.
Laser Printer
This is an image of the Ames Lab's 3D metal printing system, the LENS. The purpose of this printer is not to make parts or intricate forms. It is used to create columnar arrays (or libraries) of alloys, with systematically varying chemistry, dozens or hundreds at a time. The array can then be rapidly assessed for materials properties that may be exploited for energy conversion materials or new magnet materials, for example. This speeds up the research process versus using conventional casting/alloy methods. In this shot, for a promotional picture, it is printing an image of a graph of magnetic hysteresis curves.
