IBM creates world’s smallest magazine cover seen in 3-D

Around this time last year, IBM researchers created the world’s smallest movie consisting of atoms. Now, they’ve set another record for the world’s smallest magazine cover.

(Image via IBM Data Magazine)

How was it created? The scientists invented a tiny chisel with a nano-sized tip that’s 100,000 times smaller than a sharpened pencil point. Using the tip, the researches etched an 11×14 nanometer National Geographic Kids Magazine cover onto a sliver of polymer.

How it works

The method used for etching the polymers was different than traditional e-beam lithography. E-beam lithography uses a focused beam of electrons to draw custom shapes onto a surface that’s covered with electron-sensitive film in order to create small structures that can be transferred to a base material.

Nanolithography machine used to create the world’s smallest magazine. (Image via IEEE Spectrum)

The new method they’re using has been in the works since 2010 and uses a heated silicon probe to evaporate the material in the substrate and create a 3-D pattern. This nanolithography technique also includes built-in inspection meaning that after the heated silicon tip evaporated unwanted material in the process, a second colder tip inspects the results.

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The tiny magazine cover. (Image via IBM Research)

Over the weekend, kids were looking through a microscope at the world’s smallest magazine at the USA Science & Engineering Festival in Washington, DC.