A Tiny Way to Honor 150 Years of Swiss and Japanese Relations

In 1864, the first fish and chips shop supposedly opened in London, Abraham Lincoln was reelected as president of the United States and Switzerland and Japan established diplomatic relations after signing the Treaty of Amity and Trade. 

This auspicious anniversary will offer plenty of occasions to emphasize the important bilateral relations, including a scientific conference from 9-11 October in Tsukuba, Japan.

Scientists from IBM Research - Zurich, who recently celebrated their own 50th anniversary, will be speaking at the conference about nanotechnology. And to recognize the milestone they created a microscopic version of the Swiss and Japanese 150th anniversary logo.

Working with their partners at SwissLitho, IBM scientists created the 20 micrometers logo on a polymer in just a few minutes (see video). At this size 1,000 of the logos could fit on a grain of salt -- click for a larger version.

The scientists accomplished this by using a tiny, silicon tip with a sharp apex — 100,000 times smaller than a sharpened pencil. This patterning tool, which is sold by SwissLitho under the name NanoFrazor, opens new prospects for developing nanosized objects in fields such as electronics, future chip technology, medicine, life sciences, and opto-electronics.

This isn't the first time IBM scientists have created microscopic patterns with the technique. Back in 2010 they created a 20 micrometers-size map of the world, which was later given the distinction as a Guinness World Record.

Watch this video showing the logo being created.