Sunday October 13, 2013

Nanosouffle? This piece of dust appears to have partially deflated. I’m not sure if it really did crumple, or if it’s just a trick of the angle. The light-colored platform it’s sitting on is all semiconductor laser material, that the dust protected from the high-energy plasma that etched away the rest of the material.

This is an image of a sample that was unexpectedly fluffy after etching - you can see all the little bits of fluff on the surface around the dust. The walls of the etched area, at least, are nice and straight, meaning that the etching recipe itself was tuned pretty well.