Micro Opera House

SYDNEY, Australia -- Swinburne University of Technology's center for micro-photonics have constructed a model of the Sydney Opera House, see photo above, that is about half the diameter of a human hair. It is more than a million times smaller than the real Sydney structure. The model was built from a hybrid material of glass and polymer by firing intense laser light into the matter in a liquid state to create what to the human eye appears as an almost imperceptible dot, but under an electron microscope it contains the detail and the beauty of the iconic Sydney harbour side structure. (07/23/04 AP-Swinburne University)