The Mosaic
Tiny Time Capsule
A pre-production sample with the first 280 images
What it is
- A 29mm sapphire disk (about the size of a quarter)
- Coated in ultra-pure 24K gold
- Etched with a mosaic of 1,124 community contributed images
- 281,000,000 pixels- each pixel 750 nanometers in diameter(!)
Status
File locks on June 1, 2026. After that the disk goes to fabrication.
Some of what people have already sent in
Submit your image
We're looking for cool and creative stuff to add to the time capsule— pixel art, sketches, drawings, photos. Something you yourself created. Especially please don't submit copyrighted material.
Tiles are 500×500 pixels, 1-bit (pure black or white, no gray). Drop any image and we'll convert it for you, or (better) you can prepare your own if you want full control.
Be cool and creative. Please avoid NSFW, politics, and bad taste.
How
Semiconductor lithography — the same process that makes microchips.
- Coat the sapphire with an atomically thin layer of gold using an ANGSTROM EVOVAC thin film deposition system
- Pattern it using resist and a HEIDELBERG DWL 66+ laser writer (Write mode I)
- Etch with iodine (yep, iodine eats gold)
Readability
The disk doesn't need electricity, software, or an internet connection to be read — just a microscope. Sapphire and gold both age extremely well; we expect the disks to be around for the next 10,000 years.
Preview
A full-resolution preview of the current contents is live at mosaic.southslopenano.com, but the disk will be the permanent and canonical record.
Want to own one?
You don't have to buy anything — your image will be on the disk either way. But if you do want one, they are $150 including shipping anywhere. We start production on June 1, so hope to get them all mailed out by the end of June.
If there ever was a thing that you need to actually see in real life to appreciate it — this is it.