The smallest QR code in the world can only be seen through an electron microscope
The microscopic QR code that made it into the book of Guinness It was, according to the responsible researchers, built to “store our future”.
Over the past few years, scientists around the world have outdone themselves in trying to create the smallest QR code that can be reliably read.
Now, researchers at the Institute of Materials Science and Technology at TU Wien in Austria have raised the bar high with a QR code so tiny you’ll need an electron microscope to see it.
According to one at the University, published last week, this innovation has gained a place not Guinness World Recordslike the QR code smallest in the world.
Materials scientists at the University of Vienna have reduced the specialized barcode to a area of 1.98 square micrometerswhich is smaller than many bacteria, and is invisible to optical microscopes.
As , the previous record had been set by a team based in Germany, at the University of Münster, who managed to fit a pattern into an area of just 5.38 square micrometers — many times smaller than a human red blood cell.
So a breakthrough in this niche wasn’t just about shaving off a few micrometers here and there, it was also about ensuring that the QR code was usable for a long period of time in that tiny coding area.
“Micrometer-scale structures are not at all uncommon today — it is even possible to fabricate patterns made of individual atoms. However, this alone does not result in stable, readable code,” he explained to New Atlas. Paul Mayrhoferwho was part of the research, highlighting its complexity.
The idea is that the material remains stable in different conditions over extended periods, so the recorded code is repeatedly readable.
