Nano-printer can put the Mona Lisa on a strand of hair

The process gives new meaning to the term "fine print"

We hope you're ready for that new inkjet you just bought to look positively prehistoric. That's because a team of researchers in Singapore has managed to build a printer that can create detailed color images a mere 50 micrometers across, the width of a single human hair.

Built by the Agency for Science, Technology, and Research (ASTAR), the nano-printer works at a resolution of 100,000 dots per inch (most magazines, by comparison, are printed at 300 dots per inch). Each of the dots it prints is actually made from four tiny pillars of nano-particles, each capped with silver and gold nano-disks. Changing the distance between these dots alters how they reflect light, which produces different colors without having to use pigment like traditional printers.

According to ASTAR's researchers, the resolution they've achieved is at the limit of what can be discerned by human vision, and going any smaller would simply result in indecipherable smudges. You know, the kind you get from those old-timey ink printers.

[Image credit: ASTAR]
[via Gizmodo]

This article was written by Randy Nelson and originally appeared on Tecca

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/nano-printer-put-mona-lisa-strand-hair-044013763.html

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