IBM 3D Prints Smallest Magazine Ever

[Maggie]

I want to start off by saying, this isn't 3D printing in the traditional sense. It is more like a tiny milling /etching machine, however several news sources are calling it 3D printing. Either way this is a pretty interesting development which will likely help in the creation of graphene based circuits, and extremely fast computer processors.

What IBM did is pretty remarkable. They etched a magazine cover into a tiny piece of polymer slab. The cover was unveiled today at the USA Science and Engineering Festival. They used a tool which is shaped kind of like a pencil point but 100,000 times smaller, made of silicon. The magazine cover that they created is almost an exact replica of a National Geographics For Kids edition. The main difference is that it is only 11 x 14 micromerts in size. A micrometer is 1 millionth of a meter or 1 thousanth of a millimeter. It is not able to be seen by a naked human eye. Check out the image below of the actual magazine and the microscopic one:



Here is a video about the machine and the new Guinness world record which was broken:


Here is a look at the actual 3d printer/Milling machine used to create this remarkable piece:

[Maggie]

Here are more details on this printer and another video explaining it's process:
http://www.vancouversun.com/technolo...319/story.html