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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."

4 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.