Monday April 14, 2014

Sometimes the view under an electron microscope can be positively scary. I’ll be scrolling along at low magnification, checking out some nanoscale features, when all of a sudden a colossus will loom huge above the nanolandscape. Sometimes I actually jump. Usually it’s a tiny microscopic speck of dust, shaped like a mountain or a monster or a sail. This is one of the largest I’ve seen, maybe a clothing fiber or a carpet fiber - it’s maybe 1/5 the thickness of a single hair. Fortunately, this monster’s presence wasn’t a problem, since I was only testing an etching recipe.