Gold clusters embedded in a fluorocarbon polymer film, when illuminated with a focused laser beam, can be made to melt and coalesce into a conducting metal line. This new approach can produce microcircuit patterns directly on a fluoropolymer carrier, says Paul B. Comita, a physical chemist who led the research at IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif. Comita's work is very novel and interesting and has fundamental and practical applications, says Joseph Chaiken, a physical chemist at Syracuse University. Chaiken says he invited Comita to speak at the Physical Chemistry Division symposium he organized because the IBM work impressed him as being exciting and different. Scientists have studied extensively the laser-induced decomposition of solid thin films for the purpose of patterning thin metallic films on solid substrates. Comita's work, though, appears to be the first demonstration of the use of a laser to fashion gold conducting lines from gold clusters scattered throughout a ...