Subject: World's Smallest Snowman Thu Dec 31, 2009 9:21 pm
Quote :
The snowman is 10 µm across, 1/5th the width of a human hair.
The snowman was made from two tin beads used to calibrate electron microscope astigmatism. The eyes and smile were milled using a focused ion beam, and the nose, (which is under 1 µm wide (or 0.001 mm)) is ion beam deposited platinum.
A nanomanipulation system was used to assemble the parts 'by hand' and platinum deposition was used to weld all elements together. The snowman is mounted on a silicon cantilever from an atomic force microscope whose sharp tip 'feels' surfaces creating topographic surveys at almost atomic scales.
The Professor
Posts : 867 Registration date : 2009-11-01 Location : In the Video Game Pipe!
