Sunday, February 8, 2015

SEM: Day 73


Casey has been learning how to use a scanning electron microscope (SEM), and yesterday he gave me a quick rundown on the process. SEM's differ from traditional optical microscopes in that they use a focused beam of electrons, rather than light, to image a specimen. Achieving a much higher resolution than optical scopes, some SEM's can create a detailed image of a strand of DNA 2 nanometers in diameter. Just for scale a sheet of paper is 100,000 nanometers thick. That's pretty incredible. The only caveat is the specimen must first be coated in gold before electrons are hurled at it. Read more about this amazing tool HERE on Casey's blog.

Canon EOS 60D, Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM, ISO-1000 f/4 @ 1/40 sec.

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