The World's Smallest Snowman

The snowman is 10 µm across, 1/5th the width of a human hair.

The snowman was made from two tin beads used to calibrate electron microscope astigmatism. The eyes and smile were milled using a focused ion beam, and the nose, which is under 1 µm wide (or 0.001 mm), is ion beam deposited platinum.

A nanomanipulation system was used to assemble the parts 'by hand' and platinum deposition was used to weld all elements together. The snowman is mounted on a silicon cantilever from an atomic force microscope whose sharp tip 'feels' surfaces creating topographic surveys at almost atomic scales.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• NPL
• snowman
• christmas

[youfreaker]

guys a SNOWman is made out of freaking snow...

[yassin166]

But its not made of snow

[willbirful]

love the video man

[jessyjessy4]

very interesting thanks

[xbox28955]

merry x-mas germs

[TheAllPod]

@Turbosaucy Obviously you don't pay taxes.

[TheAllPod]

@agsc4321 LOL

[rachaeltennon]

thanks for a lot of information

[phookadude]

Everybody knows that teddy bears are made from Theodore Roosevelt

[TurboLoveTrain]

tax dollars hard at work

[pcpfree]

@youfreaker I Understand you said practically the same as I said with other words.

[youfreaker]

@pcpfree People used to make a "man" out of snow. that's why it is called a SNOWman. A stuffed teddy bear never was a real bear in the first place. A snowman inside a crystal ball is NOT a snowman, because it isn't made out of snow. It just has the figure of "real" snowman. That's the reason why it is called a snowman. And the snowman in the vid did look like the figure of a snowman but it's just not made out of snow.