By Angela Beggs

Could the everyday devices we use be about to shrink even more? Looks like it!

Our materials science researchers have been hard at work on a new micro-chip which could change devices as we know them and make them; well, much skinnier and far more intelligent.

The work has been highlighted on the cover of Advanced Materials this month and for good reason too.

CSIRO researchers, in collaboration with Kyoto University and the Elettra Synchrotron, have used metal organic frameworks (MOFs) in their latest project, which are tiny porous 3D structures with the surface area of a football field in a single gram, walls just one atom thick and reactive pores less than one nanometre wide.

Using these MOFs they have created a new super mini micro chip, visible only under a microscope. Did I mention it was really, really tiny?

It could be used in the next generation of microelectronics, security sensors, drug delivery devices and other devices we use every day, even mobile phones to potentially create even smarter smart phones.

Paolo Falcaro, CSIRO researcher and co-author of the paper, Combining UV Lithography and an Imprinting Technique for Patterning Metal-Organic Frameworks, said it’s a very exciting step towards smaller, smarter and cheaper microelectronics in the future.