Nano Engineering Students Create World’s Smallest Images of Stephen Colbert
Two nanotechnology engineering students at the University of Waterloo, in Waterloo, Canada, have created the world’s smallest images of comedian Stephen Colbert. The undergraduate students, John Maier and Erin Bedford, made the images using aluminum sputtered onto substrate through a photoresist mask. The smallest of the four images is approximately 110 µm by 130 µm, while the largest measured 1.8 mm by 2.3 mm.
For more information, please visit www.microcolbert.com
World’s Smallest Musical Instrument Created
Researchers at Cornell University have created the world’s smallest musical instrument—a miniature guitar measuring approximately 10 microns long with six strings that are each about 100 atoms wide—out of crystalline silicon. The guitar can only be played by targeting miniature lasers at the strings with an atomic force microscope, resulting in a 40 mergahertz signal measuring at 130,000 times higher than the sound of a full size guitar and one of the highest pitched tones ever recorded. The noise is inaudible to the human ear. The guitar, about the size of a human red blood cell, was created to advertise the great potential behind nanotechnology.
