Anthony Fiorito, a senior engineering physics major at Florida Polytechnic University, was published as first author of a study that found that when infused with a specific dye, peacock feathers can emit a laser light.
He conducted the research with Dr. Nathan Dawson, associate professor of engineering and physics. Photo provided to WMNF by Florida Poly (2025).
A senior at Florida Polytechnic University in Lakeland made a groundbreaking discovery while experimenting with peacock feathers. Anthony Fiorito, a senior engineering physics major, was able to create laser light from peacock feathers by adding highlighter dye. He says they tried many methods to find out how to make the peacock feathers emit lasers, but using a pink dye that is found in highlighters was the only one that worked.
“By soaking and staining the feathers multiple times and really getting the dye in there and then exciting it with an outside source, we were able to get that fluorescent dye to do more than just fluorescence, but actually emit laser light out of the peacock feathers,” said Fiorito.
Fiorito says this discovery could impact the scientific community, possibly by reducing the cost of making optical equipment.
“Making complicated optical equipment is not very cheap,” said Fiorito. “Oftentimes, these Materials are very expensive, especially if you want them with highly specific properties. The hope is to keep researching biological materials that have ideal optical properties and hopefully at some point in the future, we as a civilization can start using biologically sourced optical materials to make things like lasers, mirrors and other things like that.”
Fiorito plans to continue his research with laser light and write a follow-up paper to dig deeper into how the process works. He emphasizes that even non-scientists should appreciate research like this because it highlights how the world around us might appear ordinary, but in reality, nature can be even more complex than it appears.
For more information on this research, you can read Fiorito’s report here.