Want a ‘Shrinky Dinks’ approach to nano-sized devices? Try hydrogels
Rather than making devices small to begin with, start big and make them small later
![tiny animals from the Chinese zodiac, made in hydrogels of different colors. Top row from left: purple monkey, yellow and purple pig, yellow and purple snake, bluish gray dog, green rabbit. Bottom row from left: green tiger, yellow goat, orange horse, purple rooster, teal rat.](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/010523_jr_nano-structures_feat.jpg?fit=1030%2C580&ssl=1)
These Chinese zodiac animals etched in hydrogels come in many materials, including gold (goat), titanium dioxide (snake) and luminescent nanoparticles (rabbit). The images on the bottom are each a few dozen micrometers wide. The images at the top started that big and were then shrunk to roughly one-tenth their size.
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Carnegie Mellon University