3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, has played an extensive role in the production of large, complex components recently. Earlier this year, we covered how 3D printing was being used to build theworld's largest printed neighborhood, consisting of 100 3D-printed homes, and how the technique was used to print a school in Africa in just 18 hours.

Now, a group of scientists has set a new benchmark in 3D printing.

In a paper published in the scientific journal Nano Letters, Dr. Dmitry Momotenko, a chemist at the University of Oldenburg, along with a team of researchers from ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and Nanyang Technological University, succeeded in fabricating ultrasmall metal objects using the new technique.

According to the team, their modus operandi can be used to make objects out of copper just 25 billionths of a meter in diameter (equivalent to 25 nanometres).

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