MIT found a way to shrink matter to the nanoscale

A major breakthrough in nanotechnology is thanks to a simple material that you can find in any nursery.

It is a very fast and cheap process discovered by MIT scientists, called implosion fabrication or IF (ie, creating an explosion from inside) thanks to the polyacrylate - polymer super-high molecular compound in baby diapers.

In the Science article published on December 13, the group explained, the first step in the IF process is to pour liquid into a polyacryite piece, making it swell. Next, the scientists will use lasers to create links between fluorescein molecules with polyacrylate according to the pre-selected model - the same molecules will act as anchor points for the materials. need to be scaled, maybe a quantum dot, DNA fragment or gold nanoparticle. Finally, it is necessary to dehydrate the polyacrylate frame with an acid that makes the material mounted on polyacrylate shrink, even a thousandth the original size - researcher Edward Boyden explained the mechanism.

Illustration of implosion fabrication process.(Photo: Futurism.)

The most interesting point of the IF process is probably the ability to easily reach most labs of biology and materials science - according to MIT press release. In addition, this technology also has great application potential, almost no limits, in many areas such as optics or robots. Nanomaterials, if they become popular because of easier production, will definitely open gates that we cannot imagine.