Beauty Under the Microscope

Thayer engineering students (mostly Ph.D. candidates) recently produced images to highlight the creativity and beauty of research as part of a Visionaries in Technology contest. Here are a few examples of their extreme close-ups.

Updated on December 6, 2014

Thayer engineering students (mostly Ph.D. candidates) recently produced images to highlight the creativity and beauty of research as part of a Visionaries in Technology contest. Here are a few examples of their extreme close-ups.

Brainballs

De-hydrated alginate spheres, imaged with the secondary electron detector in a scanning electron microscope (SEM).

Philipp Hunger

Damage Features on a Metal Hip Implant

Imaged at 100x using a Keyence microscope.

Steven Reinitz

Freshwater Ice Under Microscope

Digital photograph of thin section of polycrystalline S2 freshwater ice under cross-polarized light to illuminate its columnar-grained microstructure.

Scott Snyder

Jelly Fish

Calcium carbonate crystal, false colored with a blue filter.

Philipp Hunger

Layer by Layer

Sintered, freeze-cast hydroxyapatite scaffold with horizontal canal, templated by an alginate strut.

Philipp Hunger

Microridged Scaffolds

Highly aligned microridges run alongside the walls in ice-templated carboxymethylcellulose scaffolds.

Margaret Wu

Nano Autumn

Chitosan scaffold imaged by SEM at 100X. First-place winner (tied).

Fioleda Prifti

Nano Bloom

Nanocellulose fibril scaffold. Second-place winner (tied).

Fioleda Prifti

Pacman

Chitosan Spheres with additional “burnmarks” created with the electron beam.

Philipp Hunger

Polyvinylidene Fluoride (PVDF) Vertical Nanofiber Array

PVDF fiber with 300nm diameter and 3um length fabricated by template assisted method. First-place winner (tied).

Dajing Chen

Atlas’ Hand

Debris adhered to the inner surface of a titanium tube was deposited during cutting of the tube and caused detrimental scratches.

Jay Vincelli