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Nano Scale Artworks

Matthew Sparkes writes "This article is a list of the best nano-scale artworks. It includes a 15 micron wide badger, a ten micron long guitar (which was actually played) and a 120 micron long New Scientist logo. Of course these are the images that got released to the press. In labs around the world people must have used their bleeding-edge technologies to make structures just to impress their friends. I wonder how many scientists' significant others have received nano-Valentines on Feb 14th?"

18 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. Badgers? by smitty97 · · Score: 3, Funny

    It includes a 15 micron wide badger
    Badgers? Badgers?! We dont need no stinking badgers!
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    mod me funny
  2. I love you this much by QMO · · Score: 5, Funny

    Nano valentines: For when you only love a very tiny amount.

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    Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
  3. Well I for one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    openly accept my new microscopic God.

  4. Back in 1985, I signed my chip by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Back in my VLSI class at the Univ. of Saskatchewan in 1985, our chip design team put each of our initials into the chip (I think it was a simple 10-bit adder) and although it may have seemed easy, we had to add them in such a way as to pass the various layout tests that the fab plant forced on the file. So we couldn't just add a Metal layer with "TDz" on it, it had to be drawn in such a way that all the various layout rules such as minimum distance and certain layers not crossing in certain ways had to be followed.

    TDz.

  5. One of my favorite... by AKAImBatman · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...forms of nanoscale artwork is the art etched into microchips. It's more fun than most nanoscale art, because if you start pulling apart ICs and putting them under a powerful enough microscope, you can spot all kinds of artwork.

    For those who are unfamiliar with it, I highly recommend the Molecular Expressions Silicon Zoo gallery of chip art:

    http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/

  6. Significant others by UbuntuDupe · · Score: 4, Funny

    I wonder how many scientists' significant others have received nano-Valentines on Feb 14th?"

    Many -- it's an old trick.

    "Honey, for Valentine's, I made you a really beautiful, tiny guitar. The frame is from one piece! Here, take a look. Oh, wait, we need your laboratory-grade nano-scale microscope for this. You don't have one? Ah, crap, then we can't see it! Oh well, tough break, maybe we'll get a chance some other time."

    1. Re:Significant others by MancunianMaskMan · · Score: 2, Funny

      I made a mothers-day card back in 1995, a heart-shape and the word "MAMA" focused-ion-beam implanted into some GaAs (for want of a SO at the time). It was about 30um across, but I have long lost the picture. Do I get a prize?

  7. om the i-thought-art-professors-graded-on-size dep by jimstapleton · · Score: 2, Funny

    No, Taco, that's women and english professors...

    Well art professors /do/ grade on size, but typically it's in the opposite direction, the smaller the detail, the better.

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  8. better slogan by eclectro · · Score: 2, Funny

    Nano valentines: For when you care enough to send the very least.

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    Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
  9. Microns are not nanoscale by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Thousands of nanometers is not nanoscale. I work with researchers who like to report measurements in thousands of nanometers instead of microns. It's stupid. Don't do it.

  10. A Guitar? by CrazyJim1 · · Score: 3, Funny

    So when is someone going to make the world's tiniest violin?

  11. Small Instruments? by LordPhantom · · Score: 2, Funny

    a ten micron long guitar (which was actually played)

    I was horribly disappointed that they didn't make the "world's smallest violin".

  12. Oh no!! by p3d0 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We're using an unofficial but universally understood unit of measure!!!!

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    Patrick Doyle
    I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
  13. Summary is misleading... by Etherwalk · · Score: 2, Informative

    The guitar shown in the link is a 10 micron Fender guitar; the playable guitar referenced by the article is 50 micron Gibson Flying V.

    Now all we need is a 90 micron guitarist. Quick, where do we find a Lillipution orchestra?

  14. Three orders of magnitude... by AJWM · · Score: 2, Informative

    nano-scale artworks. It includes a 15 micron wide badger, a ten micron long guitar (which was actually played) and a 120 micron long New Scientist logo.

    This features are all multi-micron in size. That isn't nano-scale, that's micro-scale, a three orders of magnitude difference. Just because it's small doesn't make it "nano". (Perhaps "nano" is the new "turbo" or "extreme"? Oh no wait, that's "HD".)

    Come back when the features are nanometer size, like this one, or these.

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    -- Alastair
  15. Currency by phorm · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I wonder what the cost is to produce these once the initial template is made? I know that many microchips have been found to have microscopic (nanoscopic?) logos and/or designs etched in them. Many countries also include various watermarks etched to microweave in their currency.

    How practical would it be to include an imprint that is only visible to microscope, and have a verification method that depends on checking said imprint (would have to be viewable with somewhat inexpensive microscopes).

  16. Micro- nano- what's the difference... by przemekklosowski · · Score: 2, Informative
    I wish people wouldn't confuse micro and nano. The article did talk about few nanometer-sized contraptions, but many of them were really much larger---several hundred micrometers (um). The cool 10 um guitar is only a tiny bit below being visible by naked eye: human hair thickness is usually between 50-100 um (.05-.1 mm).

    The difference between 10 nm and 10 micrometers is a factor of 1000 difference in size: it's like confusing a wristwatch and Big Ben clock tower watch. Even more importantly, nanoscale objects cross over into a radically different behavior, governed by quantum phenomena and other strange interactions--they can no longer be described as rigid objects subject to Newtonian mechanics.

    Oh, well, I guess this is the New Scientist's answer to sensational journalism in popular press. O tempora, o mores

  17. I did it! by TheSync · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In college, I made a metal1 layer of my initials "+" my girlfriend's initials in an unused area of a 2um process microchip through MOSIS (the letters were around 100um tall). You could see it in a microscope. She wasn't impressed.

    New girlfriend was acquired shortly thereafter.