It was created in 2013 by Keith Carroll, a Georgia Institute of Technology PhD candidate, in order to demonstrate a technique called thermochemical nanolithography (TCNL) that was invented at the university.
In TCNL, a tiny cantilever viewed through an atomic force microscope uses heat to activate a series of chemical reactions that create new molecules.
[1] Carroll decided to recreate the Mona Lisa after a challenger claimed TCNL was not precise enough to create a work of art.
[3] The Mini Lisa project, which also included recreations of photographs by Ansel Adams, was published in Langmuir in August 2013.
[2] The paper's lead author, physicist Jennifer Curtis, said the experiment demonstrated for the first time that it was possible not only to manipulate molecules on a nano-scale, but also precisely control how many are there.