Purpose of the Laser Etcher.  The laser etcher enables the NU-ERA bar code to be engraved onto the surface of any "hard" object.  This eliminates the need for tags and labels and, combined with the robust nature of the bar code, provides a level of surety the bar code will survive for the life of the article.

Figure 1.  Handheld Laser Etcher

Overview of the Laser Etcher.  At the time of writing, there are available a number of portable laser etching systems capable of etching glass, plastic, metal, wood and paper.  These systems suffer the drawback of being heavy and expensive (circa US$70,000).  Importantly, though, for large companies and organisations such as Defence, these systems are practical.  Tests using this system show that it is possible to create a NU-ERA bar code on metal in around 1/100th of a second.

Future Development.  For the laser etcher system to be useful in enabling NU-ERA technology to be pervasive, the laser etcher has to be lightweight, and hence easily portable, and it must be affordable by small business.   The NU-ERA bar code is deliberately comprised of only dots spaced at a set interval.  Much of the expense in the present-day laser etching systems lies in the fact they are designed to etch complex patterns and shapes.  The design of the NU-ERA bar code makes possible the construction of a laser head consisting only of hi-intensity laser sources set at a fixed distance apart.  This head can either move, just like a printer head in a dot matrix printer, or can have sufficient sources such that it can, in one pulse, create all of the dots necessary to create a NU-ERA bar code (potentially 1620 dots in total).