Outreach

Just in time for Advent, the stars arrange themselves in a highly symmetrical pattern. The beautiful picture was actually created using electron diffraction, with the electron beam transmitting through a thin PbS film grown epitaxially on a TiS2 substrate. While the six-fold symmetry of the substr...

Graphite, a versatile material. On the one hand it is used in daily life as pencil, on the other hand graphene with its remarkable properties can be produced by cleaving graphite. This scanning electron microcopy image shows the beautiful structure of graphite, which consists of only one element, ca...

During the Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften (LNdW) 2023 on October 21, we demonstrated how microcopy enables us to decipher the building blocks of the universe, and how this helps to understand and develop new energy materials with enhanced properties. We showcased the application of modern electron a...

This 3D rendering in ‘golden October’ color scheme displays an electron tomographic reconstruction of a porous hematite particle synthesized by Monica Distaso from the Institute of Particle Technology at FAU. In this study, mesocrystals were used as effective precursors to design nanoreactors with ...

The "Olympics" microscopy, the 20th International Microscopy Congress (IMC20), took place last 10-15.September in Busan, South Korea, after being postponed by a year due to the pandemic. Over 3,000 people attended the grand event. We have met long-lost colleagues and friends during this congress and...

This month’s image shows the crystal structure of a cobalt-base superalloy at atomic resolution (image width: 12 nm) recorded using scanning transmission electron microscopy. Superalloys of this type are produced to withstand extreme environments with temperatures above 1000 °C. In the image, you ca...

This light microscope image shows few layers of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), a layered crystal held together by van der Waals forces, on a thin gold film. These very thin MoS2 flakes were made by cleaving the natural layered bulk crystal, with the gold film serving as a stabilizer. The color of the ...

This month’s image shows a comet-like particle gracefully navigating the (nano)cosmos. The particle is the result of an annealing experiment with a gold/nickel thin film on a zinc oxide substrate. An unexpected reaction of nickel with zinc oxide produced a tail trailing a gold particle. The image w...

Hopefully your spring cleaning is already done! Here you can see the world’s smallest broom in action. This SEM image shows a small metal tip used for cleaning surfaces on the nanoscale - in this case graphene, the thinnest material in existence (a single atomic layer of carbon). Graphene is cleane...

After the complete opening since the COVID, the annual IMN/CENEM retreat took place again in Kleedorf during 9-12. May. A total number of 32 members attended the workshop. This year, we arranged a poster session besides the oral presentations, allowing master and bachelor students to present and dis...