Scientists have written what they believe is the world’s smallest periodic table – on a strand of human hair.

Experts at the University of Nottingham created the table which is so small that one million of them could be replicated on a standard post-it note, using a combination of an ion beam writer and electron microscope.

The symbols of all 118 elements were etched into the strand of hair taken from Professor Martyn Poliakoff, an expert in green chemistry. It was then presented to him as a birthday present.

Prof. Poliakoff said: “Although the application was light-hearted I felt that it enabled us to show people how such nano-writing is done.

“Our microscopist, Mike Fay, made the whole operation seem so simple and really demystified it in a most appealing way.”

The team from the Nanotechnology and Nanoscience Centre also entered the festive spirit and took advantage of the wintry weather by engraving the words “Merry Christmas” onto a snowflake.

Philip Moriarty, professor of physics, said: “Although writing on a snowflake is on one hand a bit of seasonal fun, it’s also a neat demonstration of the powerful capabilities of the tools that scientists use in the lab on a day-to-day basis.”

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