Researchers Achieve Highest Possible Resolution Image

Tags: Photography, Science

Researchers from Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) have achieved the seemingly inconceivable task of printing the highest-possible resolution image in full-color: 100,000 dots per inch.

Inkjet and laserjet printers, in comparison, print 10,000 dots per inch, max.

Their method, described in Nature Nanotechnology, uses tiny pillars, each a few tens of nanometers high, to manipulate light and therefore the color we see.

To test their theory, they successfully printed a 50×50 millimeter version (right) of the commonly-used image of “Lena” (left). Their findings could be applied to print tiny images for security purposes, or to store high-density data on disks.

If the images were printed on larger surface areas, “they would look higher than high definition,” according to Teri Odom, a chemist at Northwestern University. However, a human eye with perfect vision cannot decipher an image smaller than 20–30 micrometers.

[via Scientific American]

Photo courtesy of Agency for Science, Technology and Research