Not even the Lilliputians would fit inside. It is the smallest house in the world, and has been set up, in a laboratory, by a French team of scientists specialized in nanorobotics, specifically from the FEMTO-ST Institute in Besançon.
Their new nanobotics system – which they have christened μRobotex and which drives the frontiers of optical nanotechnologies – combines several existing technologies, builds microstructures inside a large vacuum chamber and fixes components with nanometric precision .
Thanks to this advance, optical fibers as fine as human hair can be inserted into inaccessible places such as jet engines or blood vessels to detect levels of radiation or viral molecules.
The construction of this tiny house has been echoed in the Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology A. The author of this article, Jean-Yves Rauch, highlights the importance of this advance in nanorobotics: “For the first time we have been able to design and assemble with less than two nanometers of precision, which is a very important result for the community. of robotics and optics ”. We must not forget that a nanometer is equivalent to one billionth of a meter, and that in a house of such a small size the French team has been able to incorporate all the details: the mini-construction does not lack the door, its windows and the roof gabled.
The team of Gallic engineers combined all the technological components for nanoassembly, a focused ion beam (FIB), a gas injection system and a tiny maneuverable robot, all in a vacuum chamber. They also installed a microscope so that scientists could seamlessly follow the assembly process .
How to make a giant dice out of a sheet of paper
Assembling a tiny house, explained in a press release, is like making a giant die out of a sheet of paper, only nanoassembly requires more sophisticated tools. The focused ion beam is used like scissors to cut or score the ‘paper’ of the house’s silica membrane. Once the walls are folded into position, a lower power setting is selected on the ion gun, and the gas injection system sticks to the edges of the frame. In addition, the low-power ion beam and gas injection create a mosaic pattern on the ceiling, a detail that emphasizes the precision and flexibility of the system.
Two engineers were working on several computers to be able to control the whole process. And, according to the FEMTO-ST Institute team, many steps are already automated, but in the future they hope to be able to automate all the robotic stages of the assembly .
This group of French researchers is confident that they can push the limits of technology even further by building smaller structures and fixing them on carbon nanotubes, only 20 nanometers to 100 nanometers in diameter.
Images: FEMTO-ST Institute
