Scientists in Denmark make the world’s smallest vinyl, holding 25 seconds of an infamous song
Image Credit: DTU Physics
Something we didn’t know we needed: the world’s smallest vinyl record. Thanks to scientists of DTU Physics at the Technical University of Denmark, the world now has a record that measures in at just 15 x 15 micrometers!
Can we see it with our own eyes? Barely! The record that the naked eye can barely see and holds just 25 seconds worth of the classic Christmas song Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree. The scientists have inscribed the infamous festive song polymer film using “DTU’s new Nanofrazor Scholar 3D lithography system”, reports MusicTech.
The creation was brought to life by Nolan Lassaline (who printed and cut it), and his advisors, Tim Booth and Peter Nøggild, all from the NANOMADE (Nanoscale Materials and Devices) section at DTU Physics, Technical University of Denmark.
MusicTech
With a depth of 65 nanometres, the song is patterned into the tiny records’ surface, and the wiggle of its grooves offers one channel of stereo recording while the depth provides a second. “[The vinyl] is so small that the entire thing we’re patterning could actually fit within one single groove of a regular vinyl record,” explains Postdoc Lassaline.
You can check the process of creating the record out in a YouTube video from NanoClips, though you won’t be able to see or hear the real-life record because it’s just too small. Consequently, as the video description also jokes, the vinyl is not able to play on a regular turntable.
Professor Nøggild explains in the video: “Another thing that also we would use this for is to make tiny magnetic field sensors that allow us to measure the currents in the brain, and for that, we are hoping in the long term to create some affordable technology that would allow us to answer questions pertaining to Parkinson’s Disease and Alzheimer’s.”
Check out the video below!