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Home-Built Scanning Tunneling Microscope (2015)

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Re: Home-Built Scanning Tunneling Microscope (2015)

#61

Post by Sanzig »

hintymad wrote: post #56

The geek culture in the US is simply amazing. People build all kinds of miraculous machineries at home, many of which have become world-class products. Some products even changed the history of mankind. What's even more amazing is that the US somehow keeps this culture despite decades of mockery and bullying from the pop culture and from school, and despite that generations of Americans thought that the biggest event…

The creator of the linked electron microscope project was a PhD student at McGill (in Montreal) when he built it and (according to his LinkedIn) is currently a startup co-founder in Montreal. So... not sure where US geek culture fits in to this.

Re: Home-Built Scanning Tunneling Microscope (2015)

#62

Post by craftinator »

feralimal wrote: post #25

Yes, look at all that squashed DNA, lol. Seriously though, how do we know that is DNA? It just looks like wiggly worms. And the DNA pic is black and white, but the picture of graphite is in colour. How is it in colour? Is it 'enhanced' with photoshop or something?

Donald, who let you on HN?

Re: Home-Built Scanning Tunneling Microscope (2015)

#63

Post by rsfern »

blendergeek wrote: post #55

Can we verify the circuitry on a microprocessor with this microscope?

What size features would you be looking to image? STM typically is used for atomic resolution imaging, so the maximum practical field of view is probably in the 10s of nanometers if you have atomistic resolution.

You might be better off with SEM if you need much larger field of view and can live with the coarser resolution limit

Re: Home-Built Scanning Tunneling Microscope (2015)

#64

Post by hintymad »

Sanzig wrote: post #61
hintymad wrote: post #56

The geek culture in the US is simply amazing. People build all kinds of miraculous machineries at home, many of which have become world-class products. Some products even changed the history of mankind. What's even more amazing is that the US somehow keeps this culture despite decades of mockery and bullying from the pop culture and from school, and despite that generations of Americans thought that the biggest event…

The creator of the linked electron microscope project was a PhD student at McGill (in Montreal) when he built it and (according to his LinkedIn) is currently a startup co-founder in Montreal. So... not sure where US geek culture fits in to this.

Thanks. I falsely assumed that the creator was in the US. Hopefully Canada does not have this strange culture of looking down upon geeks as in the US (so much so that Paul Graham wrote the essay on revenge of nerds, which I couldn't even understand where his emotion came or why he wrote the essay until I came to the US years later).

Re: Home-Built Scanning Tunneling Microscope (2015)

#66

Post by hutzlibu »

feralimal2 wrote: post #52
jacquesm wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand the downvotes. Because the comment is factually wrong. Because it tries to argue something in bad faith. > That's an honest fundamental question. But it wasn't a question, it was a statement, and a faulty one at that. Best case interpretation would require substituting 'current' for 'frequency' and even then it would be inaccurate because the current is a proxy for the Z-distance to the tip which…

The reason for the downvotes.... won't be popular to hear, but here it is. This forum apparently values the scientific outlook, which is purported to be a skeptical one. Do not commit to accepting whatever-it-is without evidence, right? But that unpopular, question opinions are so downvoted (which has the effect that replies cannot be posted until the next day when no one is watching) speaks volumes about how skeptic…

So ... how about some self-reflection in your bubble of self-righteousness? And actually answer to the answer of jacquesm?

"But it wasn't a question, it was a statement, and a faulty one at that

Best case interpretation would require substituting 'current' for 'frequency' and even then it would be inaccurate because the current is a proxy for the Z-distance to the tip which is then used to convert to a 3D map, which in turn can be visualized. "

So it seems you were just wrong in your statement and therefore downvoted.

In general, I would agree that the downvoting habit here is sometimes over the line. Like I would not have downvoted your original question, even though it did contained a false statement. But how you react to an answer actually explaining the reasoning - does not speak for you in this case.

Re: Home-Built Scanning Tunneling Microscope (2015)

#67

Post by kiba »

hintymad wrote: post #56

The geek culture in the US is simply amazing. People build all kinds of miraculous machineries at home, many of which have become world-class products. Some products even changed the history of mankind. What's even more amazing is that the US somehow keeps this culture despite decades of mockery and bullying from the pop culture and from school, and despite that generations of Americans thought that the biggest event…

Is this simply a trope made up and amplified by hollywood?

Re: Home-Built Scanning Tunneling Microscope (2015)

#69

Post by Groxx »

feralimal2 wrote: post #51
adge wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't actually "see" DNA itself because it is smaller than the wavelength of light. Those groves are 50nm and the wavelength of blue light is about 480nm. So how then are the images generated? It uses a technique called Fluorescence Microscopy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescence_microscope You essentially stick some special molecules on the DNA that absorb light in one frequency and then they emit light i…

This is a useful explanation - thanks! What does this mean to the value of what we are "seeing"? The example used before - that it is equivalent to a deaf man seeing a music visualisation - is apt. It is some sort of model, but not particularly close. It might still be useful, of course.

Not "seeing a music visualisation" (was it edited maybe?), reading braille. STM involves sticking a probe microscopically close to the thing-being-scanned, and reading how the surface's atoms deflect it. Which is very close to "literally feeling" the surface, as all "touch" is just electrons repelling each other at a distance - this is just at a slightly larger distance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanning_tunneling_microscope

Maybe a more human-scale-friendly analogy would be "finding the hot burner by moving your hand near it". In STM, each atom is a hot burner. You can pretty accurately figure out the arrangement of burners on your stove without needing to see or touch it.

Re: Home-Built Scanning Tunneling Microscope (2015)

#70

Post by [deleted] »

feralimal2 wrote: post #51
adge wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't actually "see" DNA itself because it is smaller than the wavelength of light. Those groves are 50nm and the wavelength of blue light is about 480nm. So how then are the images generated? It uses a technique called Fluorescence Microscopy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescence_microscope You essentially stick some special molecules on the DNA that absorb light in one frequency and then they emit light i…

This is a useful explanation - thanks! What does this mean to the value of what we are "seeing"? The example used before - that it is equivalent to a deaf man seeing a music visualisation - is apt. It is some sort of model, but not particularly close. It might still be useful, of course.

[deleted]
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