Scientists Create World's Smallest Writing

Posted on October 29, 2008

A research team at Osaka University created an atomic pen that can scribe nano-sized text on metal. The text of the writing is only 2 x 2 nanometers, or 40,000 times smaller than the width of an average human hair. The results were published in Science magazine.

The scientists used the atomic pen to arrage individual silicon atoms so they would spell "Si" on the surface of a semiconductor. The graphic above shows the letters "Si." that the scientists wrote with the atomic pen. The process took the research team one hour and a half.

Pink Tentacle reports that Masayuki Abe, a researcher from the Osaka University team, says, "It's not possible to write any smaller than this."

The research paper about the tiny writing can be found here in the journal, Science.