(June 8, 2015) Researchers
at Missouri University of Science and Technology are giving new meaning to the
term “read the fine print” with their demonstration of a color printing process
using nanomaterials.
In this case, the print features are very fine – visible
only with the aid of a high-powered electron microscope.
The researchers describe their “no-ink” printing method in
the latest issue of the Nature Publishing Group journal Scientific Reports and
illustrate their technique by reproducing the Missouri S&T athletic logo on
a nanometer-scale surface. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter, and some
nanomaterials are only a few atoms in size.