nanoart : Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation

Mysterious flowers

Yasushi Kuroda, Mitsuru Konno, Toshie Yaguchi (Hitachi Science Systems, Ltd.)

Takahito Hashimoto, Tsuyoshi Oonishi (Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation.)

This photograph shows mysterious flowers in their glory in darkness taken with a STEM (Scanning Transmission Electron Microscope). Flower petals are polycrystalline silicon particles grown in amorphous silicon dioxide (SiO₂). Using the FIB (Focused Ion Beam system) micro sampling method, small fragment with the size of 5 m x 5 m x 10 m had been picked up from a semiconductor device.
The mysterious flowers were contained in the fragment.
The fragment was finally trimmed to the thickness of about 1 mm, but still thicker for conventional TEM (Transmission Electron Microscope) observation. STEM capability of observing thicker specimen enables to see objects with their original 3-dimensional shape kept.

1st Prize. At 59th photo contest hosted by the Japanese Society of Microscopy in 2003.

Condition

Specimen : The Poly-Si/SiO₂
Instrument : Ultra-thin Film Evaluation System HD-2000
Magnification : X 10,000
Accelerating voltage : 200 kV

All information related to these photographers is based on the information when the photo was taken.
This work was presented at the "photo contest" hosted by the Japanese Society of Microscopy.
Reproduction or republication without permission prohibited.
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