TOKYO — Japanese scientists say they have used cutting-edge technology to create a noodle bowl so small that it can be seen only through a microscope.
Mechanical engineering professor Masayuki Nakao said Thursday that he and his students at the University of Tokyo used a carbon-based material to produce a noodle bowl with a diameter one-25,000th of an inch in a project aimed at developing nanotube-processing technology.
The Japanese-style ramen bowl was carved out of microscopic nanotubes, Nakao said. Nanotubes are tube-shaped pieces of carbon, measuring about one-10,000th of the thickness of a human hair.
The ramen-bowl experiment included a string of “noodles” that measured one-12,500th of an inch long and one-1.25 millionth of an inch thick.
Carbon nanotubes are being explored for a wide range of uses in electronics and medicine because their structure endows them with powerful physical properties, such as a strength greater than steel.
