Scientists create the 'world's smallest violin'

A team of scientists have created the 'world's smallest violin' - which is tinier than a speck of dust and needs a microscope to see it!

The micro-violin was created using nanotechnology by a team at Loughborough University.

It measures 35 microns long and 13 microns wide - a micron is one millionth of a metre - for comparison a human hair is around 17 to 180 microns wide.

Unfortunately the tiny violin is just an image and not a playable instrument, so it cannot be officially confirmed as the world's smallest violin, the university said.

The tiny violin was created to test the abilities of the university's new nanolithography system, which allows researchers to build and study tiny structures.

"Though creating the world's smallest violin may seem like fun and games, a lot of what we've learned in the process has actually laid the groundwork for the research we're now undertaking," said Professor Kelly Morrison, Head of the Physics department at Loughborough University.

"Our nanolithography system allows us to design experiments that probe materials in different ways – using light, magnetism, or electricity – and observe their responses.

"Once we understand how materials behave, we can start applying that knowledge to develop new technologies, whether it's improving computing efficiency or finding new ways to harvest energy," she said.

To create the violin the researchers coated a tiny chip with two layers of gel-like material called a resist, before placing it under a nano-sculpting machine.

Next the machine uses a heated, needle-like tip to "write" very precise patterns on the nanoscale - in this case a violin shape - in a process called thermal scanning probe lithography.

After that a thin layer of platinum was poured into the carved out pattern to leave behind the finished piece.

The whole process takes around three hours, but the research team's final version took several months to make, as they tested different techniques to get the best result.