Smallest sandcastle: Incredible images show castle etched onto a GRAIN of sand

They are not your ordinary sandcastles - each being able to fit on a single grand of sand.

Created by artist Vik Muniz artist/researcher Marcelo Coelh, the work goes on display for the first time in Tel Aviv this week.

The pair spent four years developing the technology to create the pictures, reports the Daily Mail.

They were created with a Focused Ion Beam (FIB), a device typically used for fixing integrated circuits on microchips.

The pair first experimented with lasers - but found they destroyed the grains of sand.

'The first time Vik talked to me about this, I thought he was joking,' Coehlo told The Creators Project.

"When someone tells you it's a grain of sand, there's a moment where your reality falls apart and you have to reconstruct it.

“You have to step back and ask what the image is and what it means.”
The sand is going on display at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

"Photography gives you the ability to play with scale,' said Muniz.

“It's not just a trick, its real.

“I think artists and scientists are both trying to understand the world around us.