Artist creates nanosculptures smaller than a human hair (2014) | Hacker News Reader

Artist creates nanosculptures smaller than a human hair (2014)

newatlas.com

73 pointsonion2k17 comments

The idea that you can only really see them through the display of a scanning electron microscope is interesting; it's there, but is it? The image seen by the viewer has to be constructed by the microscope; is the artwork truly the sculpture?

Also, maybe someone can tell me: does the electron microscope bombarding its subject degrade its materials or deform them in any way? Does looking at these sculptures contribute to unmaking them?

Some yes. Often residual carbon will deposit on the surface and change it (depositing a bit of a surface layer. If you do ion beam imaging, you do etch the surface away with each image.

I watched the interview with the artist at the bottom of the article, and apparently the sculptures have been lost.

Hurwitz received the sculptures in the U.K. from the lab in Germany on a slab of glass. Hurwitz then found a local electron microscope operator so he could look at them. After getting an initial set of images, the owner of the microscope accidentally put his finger on the glass when adjusting it’s angle in the microscope—losing the sculptures.

Hurwitz says, “the sculptures have been lost and in their place is a story.”

As a corollary all of the pictures of the sculptures not on a blank background must therefore be overlays (or possibly renders?)

Reminds me of this:

…the mighty ships tore across the empty wastes of space and finally dived screaming on to the first planet they came across - which happened to be the Earth - where due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog. ― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

"The absolute fact is this: the human eye is unable to see these sculptures," he continued. "All you see is a small mirror with ... nothing on it. The only way to perceive these works is on the screen of powerful scanning electron microscope. So how can you ever know that this sculpture really exists

I know artists like to be grandiose about their works, but consider that you are probably reading this article on a machine whose function depends on it containing billions of truly nano-scale "sculptures" that are mass-produced, and have to be perfect to work. Look at MEMS devices for even more interesting microstructures.

Why does the image resolution of sculpture on the insect head differ from the head itself?

Any information about how they were made? Are there any interest pages that go into detail about his process with more depth? Thanks :)

I think this is an advancement of SLA 3D printing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereolithography).

Specifically: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiphoton_lithography

The sculptures are very cool! That said, they're 20 x 80 x 100 microns, so aren't they microsculptures rather than nanosculptures?

Oxford (which Google Dictionary uses) defines nanoscale as such:

> of a size measurable in nanometers or microns.

The typical definition of nanoscale in science is being in the 1–100 nm range. But in common use, micron-sized objects are still considered nanoscale.

are you just splitting hairs now? :-)

A part can have features much smaller than it's total size.

One way to think of it is, a part is nanoscale if you would choose nanometers as the length unit on the drawing.

Nano might fit the definition, but 100micron (0.1mm) is visible with an ordinary microscope, so no electron microscope needed.

Incredible! These would make perfect gifts for people who live in tiny houses.

How much is shipping and handling to Shinjuku?

The figurine on the insect head looks like a superimposed image.

This is incredibly cool!

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