Researchers at Cardiff University have used some of the world's most advanced nanotechnology equipment to inscribe a microscopic poem that would fit many times onto the sharp tip of a needle.
A team at the University Manufacturing Engineering Centre (MEC) used a Focused Ion Beam (FIB) machine to engrave the three-line, seventeen-syllable Japanese-style haiku poem.
The point of a needle is approximately 74 square microns (a square micron is a millionth of a square millimetre) and the poem takes up an area of 4.35 square microns. Each of the poem's 45 letters is 170 by 170 nanometers in size (a nanometer is a millionth of a millimetre).
The tiny engraving was achieved at the Centre's MicroBridge facility, which provides UK industry with the most advanced machinery in the world for working with materials on a nano scale.
MEC Director, Professor Duc Truong Pham, said: "It is good to see that engineers and scientists appreciate poetry and can even write possibly record-breaking poems, but there are many other uses for this technique in a wide variety of sectors.
"We hope to be talking to interested parties involved in electronics, the automotive industry, environmental sensors, laboratory instruments and medical equipment."
The engraved poem was written by Kim Pham and follows the style of a 17-syllable Japanese haiku.
It reads:
My poem is small, Even nanoscopical - Can't be read at all.