Photo: John Kuntz/The Plain Dealer/Landov
The tool used to etch the words “micro plasma laser” onto this chip is the same one that researchers at Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, use to produce nanoelectromechanical systems with features smaller than 100 nanometers. The “lead” in this fancy pencil is a controllable plasma made by ionizing argon gas as it is pumped out of a tube. Electrons from the plasma travel through a stencil and into the flexible polymer substrate, where they turn metal salts into wires and structures.
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