[tahanteada]

3D maailmast:
IBM Prints World’s Smallest Magazine Cover in 3-D

Kids will look through a microscope at the world’s smallest magazine cover at today and tomorrow’s USA Science & Engineering Festival in Washington, DC. When they do, they will see a fuzzy pair of panda twins on the March 2014 cover of National Geographic Kids, the defending champion of Guinness World Records for the smallest magazine cover. This year’s is 11 by 14 micrometers (National Geographic video). Engineers and researchers looking through the microscope, however, might see the cover for what it really is: a demonstration of scanning probe nanolithography’s growing prowess.

Researchers at IBM Research in Zurich, Switzerland, began developing a new method for etching polymers several years ago, as IEEE Spectrum reported in 2010 (“IBM Develops Patterning Technique That Could Replace E-Beam Lithography”). That patterning method used a heated silicon probe to evaporate the material in the substrate, leaving behind the desired pattern in three dimensions. Part of the breakthrough was choosing the right chemistry for the substrate, so that the evaporated chemicals went into a less reactive phase, preventing them from sticking to nearby surfaces.

Edasi lingil:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/nanotechnology/ibm-prints-worlds-smallest-magazine-cover-in-3-d