Pixels Eight Times Smaller Than Apple’s Retina Display Created

Aug 31, 2010
Pixels Eight Times Smaller Than Apple’s Retina Display Created

The Retina Display, which is one of the main features of the iPhone 4, stirred quite a bit of discussion after the official announcement. Even scientists got into the fray, putting in their own two cents whenever they were asked. (And yes, we asked.) Apple boasts that the Retina Display is as good as it gets, as the human eye can't even register anything better. More or less. But that's not stopping researchers from making it better, though. It's just been made known that pixels eight times smaller than those used in the Retina Display have been created.

Utilizing nanometer-thin sheets of metal called nanoresonators and slits that actually create the pixels, researchers were able to make pixels that are eight times smaller than the ones found in the Retina Display. But, just making something isn't good enough for most researchers. Oh no, you've got to show it off. And that's exactly what they did.

The University of Michigan researchers made the school's logo fit onto a display that's only 9 microns tall. To put that into perspective, a human hair is about 100 microns wide. That means, surprisingly enough, that the University of Michigan's logo, in this particular case, could actually fit into any one of the periods in this article. But, as Apple (and Steve Jobs) would point out right about now, the Retina Display's pixels are at the very brink of what the human eye can even perceive, so while this creation is certainly a testament to researcher's creativity and ingenuity, it may never actually see mainstream products. At least, not any time soon.

[via TUAW]

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