Home

World's Tiniest Christmas Card (Invisible to the Naked Eye)

Dec 25, 2010 02:00 PM

A group of nano-scientists from the University of Glasgow have created the world's smallest Christmas card, measuring in at 200 micro-meters wide by 290 micro-meters tall. (BTW, a micro-metre is a millionth of a meter, and the width of a human hair is about 100 micro-meters.)

You could fit 8,276 of the "Christmas cards" on an area the size of a first class postage stamp, making a single card invisible to the naked eye.

Scanning electron microscope image of human hair with a holiday greeting background.

"Professor 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 of the card itself.

You could fit over half a million of them onto a standard A5 Christmas card – but signing them would prove to be a bit of a challenge...'" (Read more)

Season's Greetings with a decorated Christmas tree on a black background.

You already know how to use your phone. With Gadget Hacks' newsletter, we'll show you how to master it. Each week, we explore features, hidden tools, and advanced settings that give you more control over iOS and Android than most users even know exists.