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NETSURFER DIGEST
More Signal, Less Noise |
Volume 05, Issue 03 Thursday, January 28, 1999 |
NETSURFER LINKS
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SURFING SITES If you've ever whiled away an afternoon staring at shapes in the clouds, you'll appreciate Molecular Expressions, a gallery of startling etchings from the surfaces of everyday microprocessors. The microscopic images, which range from hummingbirds to in-jokes to cartoon characters, were photographed with "reflected Differential Interference Contrast (DIC) microscopy and a retardation plate, sometimes with oblique illumination enhanced with filtered gels". Got that? In one case, this complex technology yielded a striking, 50-um-tall Daffy Duck. From the crossword puzzle containing names of chip creators to California license plates displaying processor version numbers, the designs and their origins will intrigue as much as, if not more than, the process used to reveal them. And if you think finding Waldo at the beach is hard, try finding him on the surface of a silicon chip.http://microscopy.fsu.edu/creatures/index.html |