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Scientists Scan Striking Nanoscale Images

Posted by Zonk on from the small-sights-big-thrills dept.

BotnetZombie writes "Wired has up an article/gallery with very impressive images from the nanoworlds around us, and little stories for each picture. Besides giving an inspiring insight into the world of very little things, images of this kind can help scientists in many fields get a better handle on their subjects."

37 comments

  1. Interesting by Azh+Nazg · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is quite an interesting set of pictures; quite some beautiful bits of microscopy. My compliments to all the scientists out there bored enough/interested enough to work on and with scanning tunneling microscopes.

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  2. huhuhuh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    huhuhuh.. he said 'little thing'

    1. Re:huhuhuh... by Basehart · · Score: 4, Funny

      "images of this kind can help scientists in many fields get a better handle on their subjects"

      Say no more!

  3. Scale by XanC · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Notice how the scale on one of them says 470nm? Isn't that something in the neighborhood of green?Unreal!

    (I think they may have faked the color.....)

    1. Re:Scale by Bender_ · · Score: 1

      470nm is huge. In the semiconductor industry structures within single digit nm range are routinely surveyed using SEM and TEM.

    2. Re:Scale by dstj · · Score: 3, Informative

      (I think they may have faked the color.....)

      Colors used in STM or AFM images are added simply to help "understand" an image better. Unlike optical microscopes, which can zoom onto a tiny surface, STM and AFM don't use light. STM technology works by measuring a very tiny electrical current that jumps between a surface and the metal tip of the microscope when it's close enough (a few nm). AFM works by measuring the bending of a cantilever when its tiny tip is being scrapped from side to side on a surface.

      Very simply put, you either get a voltage or a deflection. So, instead of putting a bunch of numbers on a two-dimensional grid, you replace identical values by an identical color. The resulting is more esthetically pleasing and gets published more easily. ;-)

      The colors are fake, but the image is not.

  4. Woot by zoomshorts · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Photoshopped? Just a computer simulation, nothing more and not very artistic either.
    Yawn.

    1. Re:Woot by spvo · · Score: 1

      I hope your joking and I'm just missing the humor. These are not computer simulations any more than a radar map is a computer simulation of the earth. In both cases you get very accurate depth measurements of the surface of a material. So a computer is being used to draw the image, but it's drawing exactly what the object actually looks like.

    2. Re:Woot by QuantumG · · Score: 5, Funny

      http://xkcd.com/331/

      Perhaps this will help.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
    3. Re:Woot by Nowhere.Men · · Score: 1

      but it's drawing exactly what the object actually looks like.
      Exactly may be a little strong word to use at this scale. Heisenberg and the quantum mechanics people would disagree.
      There is a small probability that the object is in fact completely different than what you measured.
      In fact, there is a very small chance that what you were measuring have tunneled somewhere else.
  5. pictures are all well and good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    but was does it smell like?

    1. Re:pictures are all well and good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Image 9 looks like 3 miniature goatse's, so I don't want to find out.

    2. Re:pictures are all well and good by springbox · · Score: 1

      Smells like trouble. The inhaled nanoparticles cause unknown interactions with your body over time.

  6. AFM by mosb1000 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yeah, obviously you can't use light to generate images on this scale. This is one of the factors limiting the microelectronics industry, since they use photolithography, the minimum-feature size is limited by the wavelength of light being used. This is why they are interested in electron-beam, and x-ray lithography. Many of these images were generated using an AFM, which essentially scans a very fine tipped needle over the surface being imaged.

    It's funny that people are saying these are photoshoped, since it is impossible to use visible light to image objects this small.

    1. Re:AFM by gardyloo · · Score: 1

      Perhaps, although the article (what there is of it) specifically says these are STM images, not AFM. There's considerable difference.

    2. Re:AFM by gardyloo · · Score: 1

      I apologize. The front page implied that they were mostly STM images, but going through the article revealed several AFM and even an EFM image.

    3. Re:AFM by Btarlinian · · Score: 1

      This is one of the factors limiting the microelectronics industry, since they use photolithography, the minimum-feature size is limited by the wavelength of light being used. This is why they are interested in electron-beam, and x-ray lithography.

      Sorry to nitpick, but while what you are saying is true, (i.e., wavelength of light limits feature size), practically no one wants to actually use e-beam or real x-ray lithography, mainly because the light sources are tremendously expensive. (The only viable source for real x-ray lithography i.e.,

    4. Re:AFM by eyendall · · Score: 1

      "I apologize"??? Dangerous talk. This guy must be banned immediately from /.

  7. Strike? What strike? by HiggsBison · · Score: 1

    Nanoscale images are on strike?

    --
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  8. Best article in months by Capt'n+Hector · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That was truly fascinating. I never even knew these types of microscopes existed. Thank you, /..

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    Africus aut Europaeus?
  9. Counter Culture by mosb1000 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yeah, I'm probably the first poster in the history of slashdot that took the time to read the article before posting a comment. I just did it because I like to be contrary.

    In all fairness a scanning-tunneling microscope is similar to an AFM in that it scans it's probe across the surface being imaged. The article also points out that the probe can be used to manipulate matter on the atomic level. When I was in college I used and AFM to manipulate nano-wires. That's not as impressive as moving around individual boron atoms, but it's still pretty cool.

    I'm a fan of AFM, because it's a lot cheaper and easier, and because I worked with an AFM back in college.

    1. Re:Counter Culture by CannonballHead · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I'm probably the first poster in the history of slashdot that took the time to read the article before posting a comment. I just did it because I like to be contrary. That was quite entertaining and humorous.

    2. Re:Counter Culture by mrhartwig · · Score: 1

      That was quite entertaining and humorous.

      And almost certainly true.

  10. beautiful but... by harkabeeparolyn · · Score: 2, Insightful
    These are beautiful images, but they are so alien that they could be complete CG fakes and we'd be none the wiser. Since nothing really sees anything else ast those scales and the images are all false-color nonsense, maybe the best way to experience objects at these scales is some kind of touch interface.

    And keep the monkey frog away from my bagels. Yuck.

    1. Re:beautiful but... by thrawn_aj · · Score: 4, Informative

      images are all false-color nonsense, maybe the best way to experience objects at these scales is some kind of touch interface. False colors != nonsense. Just think of them as XY graphs with RGB values for heights and/or other physical properties (sometimes conductivity or even tunneling barriers). If you think of them as "real" pictures in the sense of everyday "seeing", it is obvious that they won't live up to your expectations. After all, every sense we have (except for the esp nutjobs) involves us (at least qualitatively) measuring the physical properties (reflectivity, heat, atomic binding forces, chemical composition and air density fluctuations) of objects around us (match the properties to their commonly used names :P). In that broader sense, STM, SEM and AFM are extensions to our sense, measuring more exotic properties at more outlandish length scales. IN fact, they measure the properties precisely and quantitatively, with no ambiguities as our own limited senses do.

      And touch interfaces, using the same criteria for judgment (criteria that I do not endorse), would be quite absurd as touch (the way we feel it intuitively) ceases to have meaning at length scales several orders of magnitude higher than the nanoworld. We're talking single electrons tunneling from samples to STM tips. That's how an STM "touches" the specimen.

      As for looking alien, EVERYTHING that you cannot see with your unaided eyes is alien on a gut level. This is merely one more step down the road of machine-aided sight. I do take your point about these STM images though. That is simply because it is still a young field and fast scanning is still in development. I don't have the citation handy (and it's WAYYY to late here to look it up - it was a physics group at Cornell headed by K. Schwab) but they have already made breakthroughs in performing fast scans, enough to make flyby movies using an STM.

      This is analogous to the history of the SEM (the regular electron microscope, essentially e-beams instead of light, but working off the same optical principles). Today's SEM pictures look like the masterpieces dreamed of by a crazy alien high on meth. My faith in artistic vision falls far short of it being able to dream up something like that. Trite I know, but truth is truly stranger than fiction. No Picasso can conceive of, or paint the landscapes uncovered by these fantastic instruments.

      Heck, when I worked on an SEM at times, it took all my resolve to not lose myself for my alloted time (several hundred dollars per hour I might add :P) zooming in more and more and more ... on what was essentially a dust speck, or chemical debris. It's a whole 'nuther world down there folks. Feels like Fantastic Voyage when you go and visit. Things look disturbingly familiar but you know they're not. That feeling, greatly magnified, must be what a future explorer might feel when he/she steps onto a brand new planet.

    2. Re:beautiful but... by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · · Score: 1

      On those scales, a touch interface would have the same problems, I would have thought.

  11. printing by HeavensFire · · Score: 5, Funny

    FTA - "Yang is currently working on the development of a nanoscale printing press."

    and 'fine print' writers rejoice.

  12. Atom-Probe Tomography by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    These images are very pretty, but the techniques aren't as neat as atom-probe tomography, which yields 3-D atom-by-atom reconstructions. A few images show precipitates in metallic alloys, interfaces in semiconductors, and more.

    1. Re:Atom-Probe Tomography by Goldsmith · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think scanning probe microscopy wins on "neatness" simply because it is a non-destructive measurement. APT is from the particle physics school of experimental design: blow the sample up and see what comes out, that's kind of messy.

  13. Hmmmmm..... by IHC+Navistar · · Score: 1

    Image #2 (the "crater) looks like anything but a precisely crafted crater. It just looks like a hole that was burned into the substrate. Everything else though is pretty neat.

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  14. meh by radimvice · · Score: 4, Funny

    personally, i don't think it's that big of a deal...

    1. Re:meh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I see what you did there...

  15. Maps by smoker2 · · Score: 1

    This one looks like a great map for Unreal Tournament !

  16. Painfully scaled by AlpineR · · Score: 1

    I am a SiGe quantum dot researcher. You see that first image with SiGe quantum dots "a mere 15 nanometers high and 70 nanometers in diameter"? They are shallow mounds, not long spikes. It's a shame they blew up the vertical scale like that, since the dots have interesting features like facets, atomic steps, and clearly visible atomic dimers aligned in rows if you look at them in true perspective.

  17. I wonder if... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...it's possible to get the actual grayscale heightmaps generated by the scans. I could think of some other neat renders to make based upon those.