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MNE 2016 Micro Nano Graph Contest

“A good Micrograph is worth more than the MegaByte it consumes.”Entries Presented by Dr. John Randall – Zyvex Labs        Sponsored by
In 2016, 75 entries were received from 13 Countries and 3 Continents.
There were many outstanding micrographs. The work represented in the submitted
micrographs covered a wide range of fields including micro mechanical, photonic,
and integrated circuit fabrication, chemical and dry etching,biological samples,
material science experiments and, of course, e-beam, ion beam, and nano imprint lithography experiments.

RULES

  • Entries have to be of a single image taken with a microscope and not significantly altered.
    • There is no restriction with respect to the subject matter.
    • Electron and ion micrographs have to be black and white.

JUDGES

  • Michael Stifter -World Champion in Botball robotics – Austria
    Maan Alkaisi -MacDiarmid Institute Ð New Zealand
    Falco van Delft Ð Nanovalk – The Netherlands
    Alex Liddle Deputy Director CNST, NIST – USA

AWARDS

The judges also selected 10 Honorable Mentions.

2016 included the MNE People’s Choice award where all attendees could vote on their favorite micrograph.
People’s Choice Award

COMMENTS:

Winners and Honorable Mentions will be displayed in perpetuity at www.ZyvexLabs.com

All 2016 Entries


First Prize

“Escape of the pod people”

Description: Metallic nano-flowers generated by IBE and RIE of an Al-Ti-Au-Ti coated wafer, patterned with standard photolithography. After etching, the resist is removed, the stress in the fences is released leading to the formation of the wavy stem/leaves of the flower.
Magnification (3″x 4″ image): 7000 X
Instrument Zeiss Merlin
Submitted by: Valentin Flauraud & Benoit Desbiolles
Affiliation: EPFL LMIS1 Switzerland


Second Prize

“No Fluffy, That is High Voltage”

<spantyle=’font-size:10pt;font-family:”trebuchet ms”;color:#000000’=””>Description:
This nice structure crystallized after development on the edge of a Fresnel zone plate made from HSQ
Magnification (3″x 4″ image): 44000 X
Instrument: SEM Zeiss Supra 55VR
Submitted by: Felix Marschall
Affiliation: Paul Scherrer Institut


Third Prize

“I worked my butt off for this nice SEM”

Description: Reflow of positive tone resist
Magnification (3″x 4″ image): 600 X
Instrument: Fei InspectS50
Submitted by: Arne Schleunitz & Susanne Gruetzner
Affiliation: micro resist technology GmbH


MNE People’s Choice Award – The Judges also selected this micrograph for an honorable meniton award.

“Tiny Stonehenge”

Description: The skeleton of copper pillars. After electroplating, silicon substrate is removed leaving the copper-filled through-silicon vias.
Magnification (3″x 4″ image): ??
Instrument: ZEISS Supra 40VP SEM
Submitted by: Hoa le Thanh
Affiliation: Technical University of Denmark


Honorable Mention

MNE-HM1-2016

“Lightly Plucked”

Description: Buckling of clamped-clamped Nickel beams due to the heating by a red laser.
Magnification (3″x 4″ image): 10X
Instrument: Carl Zeiss SEM
Submitted by: Tom Larsen
Affiliation: ANEMS – EPFL


Honorable Mention

“Escher reprinted”

Description: Magnification (3″x 4″ image): 700 X
Instrument: Supra 40VP SEM
Submitted by: Suhith Hemanth
Affiliation: DTU, Nanotech


Honorable Mention

“No please, not another micrograph contest”

Description: Piece of peeled off resist mask – found this little fellow at the edge of deep silicon etch structures. Make sure you got the parachute before jump!
Magnification (3″x 4″ image): 1.6 KX
Instrument: Zeiss Gemini Supra 25
Submitted by: Katarzyna Korwin-Mikke
Affiliation: Oxford Instruments


Honorable Mention

“Trump Casino”

Description: After electron beam lithography and evaporation of gold, the last lift-off processing step went catastrophically wrong with the delamination of most structures bringing chaos into the nanoworld of plasmonic antennas!
Magnification (3″x 4″ image): 32000 X
Instrument: Zeiss Merlin
Submitted by:Valentin Flauraud
Affiliation: EPFL LMIS1 Switzerland


Honorable Mention

“Tiny-Stonehenge”

Description: The skeleton of copper pillars. After electroplating, silicon substrate is removed leaving the copper-filled through-silicon vias.
Magnification (3″x 4″ image): ??
Instrument: ZEISS Supra 40VP SEM
Submitted by: : Hoa le Thanh
Affiliation: Technical University of Denmark


Honorable Mention

“Nano-Louvre”

Description: Replica of the glass pyramids in the courtyard of the Louvre (Paris) in a scale of 1: 8.000.000. The basement and the fountains are a FIB-cut, the 3D-structures (branch sizes between 25 and 70 nm) consist of platinum and carbon. This image demonstrates the 3D-Nanoprinting capabilities of Focused Electron Beam Induced Deposition (FEBID). Compare it to the real Louvre!
Magnification (3″x 4″ image): 5KX
Instrument: FEI Fib Nova200
Submitted by:Robert Winkler
Affiliation: ZFE, Graz Centre for Electron Microscopy


Honorable Mention

“Silicon Shard Horse”

Description: Silicon shards from a broken grating fabricated by deep reactive ion etching resemble a horse.
Magnification (3″x 4″ image): 4.5 kX
Instrument: SEM Zeiss Supra VP55
Submitted by: Joan Vila-Comamala
Affiliation: ETH Zurich


Honorable Mention

“African ceremonial mask”

Description: Positive Tone Resist structured by UV-lithography. The African ceremonial mask appeared during reflow.
Magnification (3″x 4″ image): 5X
Instrument: : Olympus BX51M
Submitted by: Maria-Melanie Russew
Affiliation: micro resist technology GmbH


Honorable Mention

“Do typewriters dream of selectric sheep?”

Description: Image shows a patterned curved surface fabricated with UV based soft nanoimprint lithography. The sphere has a diameter of around 100µm and the pillar pattern has a period of 2,5µm. The soft stamp deforms around the object and patterns the whole surface.
Magnification (3″x 4″ image): ??
Instrument: ZEISS 1540XB CrossBeam
Submitted by: Michael J. Haslinger
Affiliation: Profactor GmbH


Honorable Mention

“And that is why we call the kid Blockhead”

Description : It supposes to be nice carbon cantilevers however during the pyrolysis process, the stress turns them to the curly carbon cantilevers.
Magnification (3″x 4″ image): 245 X
Instrument: : Zeiss Supra 40 VP SEM
Submitted by: : Long Nguyen Quang
Affiliation: DTU Nanotech