Nano Snowman by NPL

    Scientists also know how to have fun and no less than the rest expect the onset of Christmas and New Year holidays. Only now, as it turned out, they even “sculpt” a snowman in a completely different way =)

    Everything is simple - using their own scientific tools, scientists at the British National Physics Laboratory (NPL) created the smallest snowman in the world.

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    Of course, the name is somewhat arbitrary, since no snow is suitable for such creativity. The diameter of a microscopic object is just over 10 microns (0.01 mm), or a fifth of the thickness of a human hair. According to the NPL, the “snowman” was made of two microscopic balls commonly used to calibrate the astigmatism of an electron microscope. Eyes and a smile were obtained due to the use of a focused ion beam, and a nose with a diameter of 0.001 mm is platinum deposited by the beam.

    All elements were formed manually by means of a nanomanipulation system, and scientists connected them together by the platinum deposition technique. The figure is located on a silicon cantilever of an atomic force microscope. A cantilever is a construction of a miniature pad and a tip, with the help of which a microscope “scans” the surface of the sample under investigation. Unfortunately, NPL technology does not allow carrots to be made.

    The snowman scale perfectly displays the video:


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