Researchers Print The World's Most Minuscule Color Picture Using 3D NanoDrip Technology

With the new breakthrough in nano structured images, ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) and their startup company Scrona ltd. have claimed a new Guinness World Record of printing the smallest inkjet color image. To give you an idea of what makes this achievement super-special, it's that the image is about the same size as the cross-sectional area of a typical human hair or about the size of a single pixel on a retina display. The image, depicting a pair of colorful clown fish in the middle of a cluster of sea anemones, is completely invisible to naked eye and has to be viewed using a special miniature microscope called the 'µPeek'.

Tiniest-image

The image was printed using the groundbreaking 3D NanoDrip Printing technology invented at ETH Zurich and commercialized by its spin-off company Scrona. It measures 0.0092 mm2 in area or 80 µm× 115 µm. The fishes that grow to a size of 10 cm in real life have been comfortably shrunk to fit in the size of about 30 µm. The 24 bit color depth in printout their pictographic home appears as colorful as in the real world.

What makes the image so dynamically attractive is the magic of ‘Quantum dots’. The dots are known to be very intense in their display and have already made their debut in flat screen displays. They are the nano particles which emit light of a specific color. The change of size of dots is what helps in tweaking their color for example from orange to yellow.

To create the image, layers of blue, green and red quantum dots were oriented at an inter pixel distance of 500 nano meters. The thickness of the layers was controlled with astonishing sub-nano meter precision at each individual pixel location to achieve the 24 bit color space. The 3D NanoDrip Technique used is basically based on an electrically stimulated droplet ejection which enables sub 100 nm printing.

mu-peek-image

A tiny microscope used for viewing the image, µPeek, is a small credit card sized device that will wirelessly connect with the user’s smartphone for the operation of microscopy. The company forwarded an unique opportunity to users to get a sneak peek of this technology before it hits the market, via #-Link-Snipped-# offering a true-to-life micro image print, of the personal content provided by the buyers.

mu-peek-resolution

This accomplishment makes possible an incredible accuracy of handling nano structured materials, which was elusive until now even with the avant-garde semi-conductor technology. It opens new vistas for the use of materials of this scale in future electronics, optics and display sectors which is sure to emerge as a decisive technology enabler.

Source: #-Link-Snipped-#, Nano-Scale 3D Printing Technology Helps Researchers Print the Smallest Color Picture Ever Printed - 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing

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