Japan commercializing Tomsk technology for production of ultrasharp razor blades

Razors manufactured using Tomsk technology compete with Gillette. They are made in Japan, though. An innovative blade sharpening technology for stainless steel blades developed by the Tomsk Institute of High Current Electronics was sold to a foreign company.

The originator of the technology – Dr. Nikolay Koval from the Tomsk Institute of High Current Electronics – revealed that the unique method uses "ion bombardment and sputtering."

"Also, introduction of nitrogen in the steel dramatically improves durability," he adds.

A yet unnamed Japanese company that cooperated in the research and eventually obtained the rights to commercialize the technology has given it the name "PINK". PINK is a Russian-language abbreviation for "hot cathode plasma source" or, as the Japanese marveled with the Tomsk know-how used to joke, "plasma source of Nikolay Koval". Pink is also the color that Tomsk-developed plasma generators produce.

"We developed a source that can treat a lot of blades at a time. Generally speaking, we produced a prototype model of our laboratory plasma generator," says junior research assistant of the Institute of High Current Electronics's plasma emission electronics laboratory Vladimir Shugurov.

The laboratory is currently running in the fourth such plasma generator which will soon be taken to Japan following the other three. The Japanese seller of PINK blades is said to already have spent an estimated $100,000 back home to promote Tomsk innovative blades, seized some of the Gillette's local market, and is getting ready for a trade expansion to foreign markets.

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• December
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