News: Fiber Laser Scores Aperture Logo in Steel While Playing Portal's "Still Alive" Theme Song

Most of your who visit Fear of Lightning are probably well familiar with laser weaponry, thanks to Christopher's three-part series covering carbon dioxide, flashlamp, and semiconductor lasers. Another type of laser currently being developed as a weapon is the fiber laser, which is compact and efficient, but much weaker than a chemical laser. Fiber lasers are more commonly used in laser cutting and marking, telecommunications, spectroscopy, and of course... music.

Using a 20 watt turnkey fiber laser by Automated Laser Corporation, a stainless steel plate and some well thought out marks, gamer chjade84 was able to recreate Portal's "Still Alive" theme song by Jonathan Coulton. The best part about this musical laser? While reproducing the theme song (with the help of Xusder), the fiber laser engraves the logo for Aperture Laboratories, where the Portal video game takes place.

Since laser markers weren't exactly made for theme music, it took chjade84 a long time to accomplish as much as he did in the video. But surely, GLaDOS would approve! If you're interested in having your own laser/music engraved steel plate with the Aperture Science logo, you may be lucky. Chjade84 has contacted Valve for permission to distribute them.