Fun with the laser cutter

After following the various adventures of several DIY rapid prototyping projects (CandyFab, MakerBot, Fab@Home, RepRap) I got curious one day whether I could use one of our laser cutters to sinter sugar together into shapes.

This was standard sugar, hit with about 2 watts of power, very slowly. I started with a very thin layer on the cutting bed, and for each of five passes I spread a little bit more sugar in the area, and dropped the bed about 1/100 of an inch.

The resulting resolution is pretty good, but I'm thinking that either the power or speed might be varied to yield better results. I was unable to break these letters off the base sheet without crushing the shape - perhaps it might work better to work on a piece of wax paper, move slightly faster, or use slightly less power. Then again, too far in any of those directions and the shapes themselves might not be as strong.