Cover Picture: A Simple Miniaturization Protocol to Produce Multicomponent Micro‐ and Nanostructures (Small 7/2006)

The cover picture illustrates a new method of nanolithography, stepwise contraction and adsorption nanolithography (SCAN), that should in principle be able to extend the advantages of multicomponent microfabrication into smaller dimensions, as well as to reach the spatial precision afforded by scanning probe lithography. The left column depicts the balloon analogy of SCAN, in which the writing “small” on the balloon is miniaturized upon deflation. The right column presents a laser confocal micrograph of a two‐component array (red and green fluorescent dyes) generated after one and five SCAN cycles (top and bottom, respectively) in 2D reduction. Scale bars are 500 and 50 μm, respectively. For more information, please read the Communication “A Simple Miniaturization Protocol to Produce Multicomponent Micro‐ and Nanostructures” by G.‐y. Liu and co‐workers on page 884 ff.