Researchers at RPI and the University of Oulu in Finland created an image of Albert Einstein using a conventional desktop inkjet printer and ink made of multi-walled carbon nanotubes. The work demonstrates the possibility of using the simple printing technique as a cheap and easy way to pattern the electrically conducting nanotubes and mass-produce flexible conductive circuits, and one day lead to low-cost, roll-up displays, radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags for tracking goods, and gas sensors.

A description of the process, which involved filling off-the-shelf ink cartridges with a water-based liquid containing the nanotubes, is published in the August 2006 issue of the journal Small.

Read the story in detail here.

(via Technology Review)

See here for our previous report on the NanoSkin developed by the same RPI group.