Ultra-high-res 100,000 dpi color printing

SquamishPhoto

http://www.kurzweilai.net/ultra-high-res-100000-dpi-color-printing

Commercial laser printers typically produce pin-sharp images with spots of ink about 20 micrometers apart, resulting in a resolution of 1,200 dots per inch (dpi).

By shrinking the separation to just 250 nanometers — 80 times smaller, a research team at A*STAR can now print images at an incredible 100,000 dpi, the highest possible resolution for a color image.

These images could be used as minuscule anti-counterfeit tags, for steganography (hidden messages in images) or nanoscale optical filters or to encode high-density data.

dissent

Dude!! @-)

Symphotic

250 nm is in the ultraviolet region. No standard light microscope could resolve the dots. You would need at, at a minimum, a scanning confocal microscope with an ultraviolet laser for illumination to do any kind of pixel-peeping! Lucky for you all you have Symphotic here on your forum: I just happen to sell these.

Ade

To put what Symphotic said in a different perspective: 250nm is at the optical diffraction limit (Abbe limit) for visible light (green at 500nm) so 100,000 dpi is at the theoretical limit of what can be seen using visible light and modern optics.

It is literally as high-res as we can get for visible light. A higher dpi would just be diffraction-limited to the same resolution. Very impressive.

donaldejose

Symphonic: Can you post some photos of the machine and a 100% of one of the images it prints?

Golf007sd

So how much does this unit cost? :-?

mikep

what would be the application ?

John

what would be the application ?

When you look at a current image you can still see the dots used in the printing process.
It might take a magnifying glass a a very good eye (depending on the print quality) but it's still visible.
The described technology can print without visible dots. There is literally no way to visualize the individual dots using the visible light spectrum. So, it would be the perfect print.

Of course the most likely real world applications (or at least the first applications) would be in authentication of authenticity. Right now we already have microscopic script on money. This will allow even more detail and make forgery even harder.
Another use might be in espionage/data smuggling. You could print entire sentences on a single letter.
You might carry "Moby Dick" across the border (the text looks like the text of Moby Dick to the naked eye) while carrying a nations atomic secrets in the microscopic text that makes up the letters.
This to name but two that spring to mind.
There are likely hundreds or thousands of applications for this technology.

Symphotic

Symphonic: Can you post some photos of the machine and a 100% of one of the images it prints?

Let me clarify: we don't sell a printer, we sell a scanning confocal Raman microscope that can resolve the dots.

Msmoto

This all reminds me of a couple of years ago when I was given the opportunity to play with a 3-D Force Field Microscope. Through a joy stick we played with such things as fibrin strands in the nanometer range. Also, pulling one side of a chromosome apart as it split.....and measuring the force required.

All too complicated for me...

Symphotic

We've done some work using the atomic force microscope is an accessory. The tip of the AFM actually enhances the Raman signal making really tiny structures easier for our detectors to pick up. (A Raman signal is just light that is scattered at a different wavelength than what you started with.)

haroldp

What kind of paper would be needed for this resolution ?

Ade

They can't use paper. Rather, a special light-sensitive material is applied to a silicon wafer. It is then sculpted into finely-spaced posts and capped with a thin metal layer. It is the arrangement of these metal-capped posts which produces colors under visible light.

haroldp

Are they planning to, or printing semiconductor layers ?

... H

Ade

Yes it's possible to print semiconductor layers, using inkjet and other forms of printing (e.g., press.) For inkjet printing, typically they print semiconductor ink on materials which are resistant to tearing (such as glass or flexible plastic). For press printing I think they can print to paper as well.

Semiconductor printing technology is very new. In the short term, the hope is to use this technology to print RFID tags very inexpensively, and also to make large LED lights.