"One hurdle has been finding a process for making smaller features in a production line where you irradiate materials quickly and with absolute precision to make the process economical." Key Takeaways Smaller, faster, and more affordable microchips could emerge from the newly discovered materials and process. Researchers discovered a method to coat silicon wafers with a metal-organic, a material that is not currently used in microchip manufacturing. The advanced lasers required for imprinting on the minuscule formats already exist, Tsapatsis added, but researchers needed new materials and new processes to accommodate ever smaller microchips. "Because different wavelengths have different interactions with different elements, a metal that is a loser in one wavelength can be a winner with the other," Tsapatsis said.