FW: Smallest Guitar

[Andy C]

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From:   Felinda
Sent:   Friday, July 25, 1997 3:51 AM
To:     forteana at lists.primenet.com
Subject:        Smallest Guitar

Scientists Create Guitar Smaller Than a Blood Cell

Thursday, July 24, 1997; 1:41 a.m. EDT

ITHACA, N.Y. (AP) -- It might suit Eric Clapton, if he were an
amoeba.

The world's tiniest guitar is about the size of a single blood cell,
about 20 times thinner than a human hair. Its six strings resonate
when plucked but can't be heard by the human ear.

Scientists at Cornell University carved the guitar out of crystal
silicon to demonstrate the possibilities of building
electromechanical devices at the microscopic level.

The guitar itself is just 10 micrometers long. A micrometer is
one-millionth of a meter. The strings are each about 50
nanometers wide. A nanometer is a billion times smaller than a
meter.

"The guitar was made for fun but demonstrates a new technology
that can be used to fabricate extremely small mechanical devices
for a variety of electronics and other industries," Cornell
spokesman Larry Bernard said Wednesday.

A guitar pick wouldn't do for these strings, as wide as about 100
atoms. They could be plucked with the tip of an atomic force
microscope.

Nanotechnology is already finding a place in a variety of
industrial uses in fiber optics, light displays, sensors and
electronics.

Harold Craighead, an engineering physics professor who
supervised construction of the guitar, said it's still technically
possible to make devices even tinier.

"The question is how small can we go and still have dependable
and measurable mechanical properties," he said. "We are nearing
the technological limit where it gets harder to get smaller than
this."



Fel
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http://www.athenet.net/~felinda