Nano Teddybear, Garden of Eden and other spectacular nanotechnology images

(Nanowerk News) At the 2008 MRS Fall Meeting last December in Boston, MA, and the Spring Meeting this April this year in San Francisco, CA, the Materials Research Society conducted the sixth and seventh installments of their popular "Science as Art" competition. Here are some of the amazing images from the fields of nanotechnology that won prizes:

Nano Teddy Bear The scanning electron microscopic image (taken using a FESEM LEO 1530) shows the ZnO nanostructures on an indium oxide coated glass substrate deposited at 70oC by using a facile electrochemical deposition technique. A potentio-/galvanostat electrochemical workstation (CH Instruments 660A) was used to deposit the ZnO nanostructures by amperometry potentiostatically at -1.1 V (relative to the Ag/AgCl reference electrode) and a spiral platinum wire served as working electrode. An aqueous zinc nitrate [Zn(NO3)2.6H2O] solution was used as an electrolyte to prepare these ZnO nanostructures. (Image: Helia Jalili, University of Waterloo)

Carbon NanoEden Garden of Carbon NanoEden (Image: M. de Volder, S. Tawfick, A.J. Hart, University of Michigan)

Nano Spaghetti and Meatballs Colorized and overlaid scanning electron microscope images of Spaghetti and Meatballs made out of Au and Si. The 'spaghetti' is a collection of electrodeposited Au nanowires, 100 nm in diameter, that have released from the substrate and bundled together (Thomas Cornelius  GSI Darmstadt). The 'meatballs' are Si nanoparticles, ~1.5 um in diameter, with Au nanocrystals on the surface that were grown on carbon-coated substrates using ultra-high vacuum molecular beam epitaxy (Gunther Richter  MPI Stuttgart). These images highlight some of the many varied structures that can be formed at the nanoscale. (Image: Blythe G. Clark and Dan Gianola)

Nanoflower The crystalline wurtzite indium nitride (InN) nanoflower was synthesized via molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) processes, using pure indium and a high efficient nitrogen source, hydrazoic acid (HN3). (Image: PaiChun Wei, Center for Condensed Matter Science, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan)

The nano-grip This is an SEM image (color enhanced by Photoshop) of high aspect ratio 250nm thick epoxy bristles that have self assembled and trapped a 2.5 micron diameter PS sphere. (Image: Boaz Pokroy, Harvard University)