Skip to footer

'Mini Lisa': Georgia Tech researchers create world's tiniest da Vinci reproduction

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have created a reproduction of the 'Mona Lisa' that is no wider than a third of the width of a human hair.  

|
Courtesy of the Georgia Institute of Technology
Georgia Tech researchers have created the "Mini Lisa" on a substrate surface approximately 30 microns in width. The image demonstrates a technique that could potentially be used to achieve nano-manufacturing of devices because the team was able to vary the surface concentration of molecules on such short length scales.
|
Courtesy of the Georgia Institute of Technology
The Mona Lisa, with representation of the temperature that needs to be applied at each position on the surface to get the appropriate final result. The modeling thelps determine what temperatures to use during the TCNL process

Most people who visit the Mona Lisa at the Louvre are surprised at how small it is. Leonardo da Vinci's iconic painting measures just 30 inches by 21 inches. 

But even this minuscule masterpiece looks huge next to what researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have created. Using a tiny heated probe, a team of scientists have 'painted' a grayscale replica of the Mona Lisa that is more than 25,000 times smaller than the original. 

The "Mini Lisa," as it is known, is just 30 millionths of a meter wide. That's roughly 0.001 inches, or one third of the width of a human hair.

According to a study published online by the journal Langmuir, the team created it using a powerful microscope and a process known as ThermoChemical NanoLithography, or TCNL. Using a microscopic cantilever, an anchored beam with a tiny, downward-facing point at one end, a patient Georgia Tech doctoral candidate named Keith Carroll, heated tiny spots on a surface to create a series of chemical reactions to create new molecules: The more heat Mr. Carroll applied, the more molecules he created, making the surface appear lighter.

Each "pixel" was 125 billionths of a meter wide – smaller than the smallest known bacteria – and Carroll and the rest of the research team went pixel-by-pixel to create the reproduction.

Their efforts were more than just an attempt to create a nanoscale artistic movement: “We envision TCNL will be capable of patterning gradients of other physical or chemical properties, such as conductivity of graphene,” said Georgia Tech physics professor Jennifer Curtis, the study's lead author, in a press release. “This technique should enable a wide range of previously inaccessible experiments and applications in fields as diverse as nanoelectronics, optoelectronics and bioengineering.”

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to 'Mini Lisa': Georgia Tech researchers create world's tiniest da Vinci reproduction
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/0807/Mini-Lisa-Georgia-Tech-researchers-create-world-s-tiniest-da-Vinci-reproduction
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe