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Nanoscale Race Car Gets 3D Printed With a Laser

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the Vienna University of Technology have managed to perfect 3D printing at the nanoscale. What may look like a grain of sand to the human eye could in fact be a detailed racing car model, a reproduction of a famous church, or London Bridge. The 3D printer relies on a laser beam directed by mirrors through a liquid resin onto a surface. It can print at 5 meters per second, which is a world record, and the end result is only a few hundred nanometers in size. The next hurdle: printing with bio-material so we can start making our own body parts/organs."

6 of 39 comments (clear)

  1. Here's your car analogy by oodaloop · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's like they made a little car!

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    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  2. Not really nanoscale by wjh31 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's stretching it a bit to call it nano-scale. The legend on the images puts the models in the region of 100um. 0.1mm is not really nano-scale, unless the hair on our head is nano-scale. With around 200 lines per layer, we're still talking about hundreds of nanometers for the print resolution.

    small is not nano, regardless of how much SEO you're after

    1. Re:Not really nanoscale by roman_mir · · Score: 2

      The only legitimate question remains, and it's this:

      Dude, where is my car?!

  3. Can We Take Back Nano? by schlameel · · Score: 4, Informative

    It prints at micro scale. Willard Wigen is unimpressed.

  4. Re:Fake by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 2

    Sorry to hear you're disappointed. Perhaps they can print a nano-violin and pretend to play it just for you :-)

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    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  5. Why a car? by Nidi62 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Why make a tiny car when they could have actually printed the world's tiniest violin?

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    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil