Smallest World Map Was Created with Salt !!

I know, this stuff is crazy, but you know, it's really amazing. Imagine, with nowdays technology advance, people can create the microsize of world in just a few seconds. I can't explain it more, just read this article that was copied from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/. 

Scientists in Zurich have created the world's smallest 3D map - of the world. IBM's perfectly formed 'nano-world', has now been accepted by the Guinness World Record organisation.  The map measures a miniscule 22 by 11 micrometers. Or, to put it in perspective, 1,000 maps would fit on just one grain of salt.

Beautifully formed: The world's smallest map is composed of 500,000 pixels, each measuring 20 nm2 and was created in only 2.23 minutes

Chiseling out Europe: A nanoscale tip - 100,000 times smaller than a sharpened pencil - carves out Europe on the 3D map

The map was 'written' on a polymer and is composed of 500,000 pixels, each measuring 20 nm2 and was created in just two minutes and 23 seconds. A map that can only be seen through a microscope may seem as useful as a chocolate teapot, but the new technology behind it is set to open a whole new world in industry.

Existing nano techniques struggle to make structures smaller than 30 nanometers and are expensive to use.

But the new technique uses a nanoscale tip - 100,000 times smaller than a sharpened pencil - to cheaply create 2D and 3D patterns and structures as small as 15 nanometers.

Lofty peaks: The IBM scientists also created a 25 nanometer-high replica of the Matterhorn peak, a famous Swiss mountain that soars 14,692ft (4,478m) high

A mountain of work: The 3D image was etched onto a piece of molecular glass, representing a scale of 1:5billion

Where the magic happens: IBM's new nanopatterning tool. The picture shows a close-up of the core micro-electro-mechanical system of the tool, which controls the tip

The etching technique the machine uses is similar to how Egyptian’s chiseled away at stone to create drawings and hieroglyphics. The technique opens new prospects for making nanosized electronics and objects in fields ranging from future chip technology to opto-electronics to medicine and life sciences. The findings were published in Science and Advanced Materials.

tag : world smallest map, nano size map, world smallest globe, 2012