New tool for the molecular machine shop

University of Michigan researchers are using a femtosecond pulsed laser as a milling machine capable of carving out features as small as 20 nanometers, 1/5000th the diameter of a human hair. The new approach trumps state-of-the-art electron beam lithography because it can machine features in three dimensions. "If we have three channels on a plane, we can link the outer two without cutting into the center one, we can go down over and up, we can cut a U-shape," said one of the principal investigators. "Not being constrained to one plane, the level of complexity that can be achieved is much greater." Link