Scientists produce 'world's smallest Christmas card'

23 December 2010 Last updated at 08:03 GMT

Glasgow University provided this graphic to demonstrate how small the card is

Scientists have produced what they believe is the world's smallest Christmas card.

It was created by nantotechnologists at the University of Glasgow and is so small it could fit on to the surface of a postage stamp 8,276 times.

The image, which measures 200x290 micro-metres, features a Christmas tree and is etched on a tiny piece of glass.

The team behind the project said the technology could eventually be used in products such as TVs and cameras.

The university's school of engineering drew up the design to highlight its "world-leading" nanotechnology expertise.

Prof David Cumming said: "Our nanotechnology is among the best in the world but sometimes explaining to the public what the technology is capable of can be a bit tricky.

"We decided that producing this Christmas card was a simple way to show just how accurate our technology is.

"The process to manufacture the card only took 30 minutes. It was very straightforward to produce as the process is highly repeatable - the design of the card took far longer than the production.

Human hair

Prof Cumming added: "The card is 200 micro-metres wide by 290 micro-metres tall.

"To put that into some sort of perspective, a micro-metre is a millionth of a metre; the width of a human hair is about 100 micro-metres.

"You could fit over half a million of them on to a standard A5 Christmas card - but signing them would prove to be a bit of a challenge."

The colours were produced by a process known as plasmon resonance in a patterned aluminium film made in the university's James Watt Nanofabrication Centre.

Although the Christmas card example is a simple demonstration, the university said the underlying technology had important real-world applications.

The electronics industry is taking advantage of micro and nano-fabrication technology by using it in bio-technology sensing, optical filtering and light control components.

The applications are critical in the future development of the digital economy and could eventually find their way into cameras, television and computer screens to reduce the manufacturing cost.

世界最小耶誕卡 兩根頭髮寬

〔編譯張沛元／綜合報導〕英國媒體報導，英國格拉斯哥大學的奈米科技科學家，已成功製作出一張據信是全世界最小耶誕卡—小到用肉眼無法看見，以及得用上八千兩百七十六張迷你耶誕卡，才能填滿一張普通郵票的表面。

鏤 刻在一小塊玻璃上的這張全球最小耶誕卡片，上面圖案是一棵耶誕樹。格拉斯哥大學的科學家之所以要設計這張耶誕卡，是要向該校獨步全球的奈米技術致敬。該校 教授康明說，他們的奈米科技在全世界數一數二，但有時要向大眾解釋該科技並非易事，「我們決定製造這張耶誕卡，以顯示我們的技術有多精準。」

康 明說，製作這張迷你耶誕卡只花了三十分鐘，反倒是設計卡片圖案花了比較長的時間；這張卡片寬兩百微米、高兩百九十微米，而一微米等於一公尺的一百萬分之 一。至於人類一根頭髮的寬度，大約是一百微米；若要填滿一張標準Ａ５大小的耶誕卡，得用上超過五十萬張迷你耶誕卡，但要在卡片上簽名落款就麻煩了。

運用奈米科技來製作迷你耶誕卡不過是牛刀小試，但其中涉及的科技卻能應用於真實世界。電子業已利用微米與奈米製造技術於生物科技感應、光濾以及光控零件。