2022 MRS Spring Meeting
Science as Art Competition

1—Lab Romance <3

Stefan Merkens, CIC nanoGUNE

Undoubtedly, Hawaii has some of the most beautiful sunsets at our planet. But maybe it has also occurred to you, that you spent too much time in the lab and missed another unique sunset at iconic Sunset Beach? This is how you can reproduce similarly magnificent light scattering effects using optical microscopes and thin polymer films. This image shows a ~50 µm pore in the cross-sectional view of a hydrodynamic 3D flow-focusing microfluidic mixing device laser-written into a 150 µm-thick polyimide film. Such complex T-shaped flow devices allow to precisely and reproducibly mix two reactant solutions (of which one is entering through the pore and surrounded from both sides by the other) to induce self-organization phenomena on the nanoscale which can be tracked in real-time by small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) experiments at various positions along the flow channel. The optical effects occurred when imaging with an inverted optical microscope.

2—Protein Terraced Fields

Shuai Zhang, University of Washington

Two-dimensional protein crystal was characterized by atomic force microscopy with PeakForce Tapping mode in Tris buffer on muscovite mica. The scan size is 183 nm by 183 nm. The crystal was synthesized by the Tezcan Group at UC San Diego.

3—Polymer in Motion

Yari Foelen, TU Eindhoven

A superimposition of a photoresponsive liquid crystal polymer film during actuation, taken with a high definition camera (film dimensions 16 x 5.3 mm).

4—An Extremely Tiny Garden of MOFs

Angelica Rain Talosig, University of California, Irvine

Scanning electron microscopy image of a self-assembled ZIF-8 metal-organic frameworks. Two distinct crystal structures are seen in this image: the truncated dodecahedron structures are ZIF-8 (DIA) and the flower structures are ZIF-8 (SOD).

5—Perovskite Transistor
 

Ao Liu, Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH)

Could metal halide perovskite be of use in electronic devices beyond solar cells and light-emitting diodes? This image describes the possibility of halide perovskite in high-performance transistors and circuits, which were achieved in our recent work.

6—Spring is Coming
 

Aleksandr Perevedentsev, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

Directional co-crystallization of macromolecular semiconductors with sacrificial additives can yield highly oriented active layers for high-performance polarized organic photodetectors. Processing adjustments can also produce the grass-like microstructures shown in this cross-polarised optical micrograph, where every blade is a minuscule donor-acceptor bulk heterojunction.

10—Cloudy Day at Sea

Chaehong Lim, Seoul National University

Cross section of hydrogel nanocomposite attached on a carbon tape

11—Microfireworks

12—Alpine Force Microscopy

13—Bioluminescent Flora of Pandora

14—Stormy Beach

Joe Turner, University of Bath

Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) image under variable pressure of a freeze dried hydrogel cross section. We were looking at the porosity in the internal structure by imaging at the break point, and later found this image to resemble a stormy sea with the beach adjacent. Look out of the miniature sailing boat in the middle of the stormy sea. Note the image has been colourised for effect.

15—Conductive Roots

Steven DiGregorio, Colorado School of Mines

Colorized SEM image of a copper microwire network. The network was made by electrospinning and electroless copper deposition.

16—Riding the Waves of LCMO

Alexandra Berg, University of Groningen

False color SEM image of block copolymer templated nanostructures of La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 where the fingerprint-like structures resemble the waves of the ocean, while the defect area represents a beach. Science doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful. Image taken at 50.000 times magnification.

17—Luminescent Islands

Tim Kodalle, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Photoluminescence imaging was used to probe 2D/3D halide perovskite films. The bright orange features stem from the luminescence of the 2D bulks on the surface of the 3D film (purple luminescence). Bulky 2D halide perovskites are used as surface treatment on 3D perovskites to enhance stability and reduce surface related recombination losses. PL-Imaging helps us to understand the distribution of the 2D bulks. These materials can be used to enhance the stability and efficiency of perovskite solar cells. The image was produced as part of work conducted by Vivian Meier, Tim Kodalle and Carolin Sutter-Fella.

18—Sierpiński, A Cute Triangle That Never Ends

Alec Saville, Colorado School of Mines

This micrograph captures self-accommodating titanium martensite plates in a Ti-Cu alloy cooled at 100 Celsius per second and surface prepped with a colloidal silica polish. Captured using backscatter electrons in a scanning electron microscope, each 500 nanometer - 1 micrometer martensite plate forms part of a Sierpiński fractal, recursively forming smaller triangles within larger ones. The formation of this fractal is natural upon cooling, with each new triangle side reducing the stresses in the metal present from the cooling process. Secondary plates form in between the sides of the main triangle, often creating their own sub-fractals in the process. This image was deliberately kept in grayscale to highlight how unlikely the central fractal was to form directly on the plane being imaged. The 3 micrometer scale bar was selected to keep with the theme of "threes" from the Sierpiński fractal. This micrograph also captures a core part of research, where like the Sierpiński fractal, discoveries in the research process never truly end. They may appear to have limits, but only if you stop looking.

19—Boron Nitride Nanosheets Can Induce Water Channels Across Lipid Bilayers Leading to Lysosomal Permeabilization

Xuilang Qian, Nanyang Technological University

20—Troubled World

Mark Atwater, Liberty University

As it seems one crisis gives way to the next, the personification of the world can be seen leaning over this misshapen globe, either sleeping, despondently looking to the right, or even head in hand, mourning the state of our condition. Which one you perceive may reflect as much on your own state of mind. Scanning electron microscope image of 130-micron iron particle taken at 600X magnification and 20kV accelerating voltage. False color added to lower portion and background changed. No other modifications to original image.

21—An Optical Image of A City View at Night from the Plane

Rubaiya Murshed, University of Nevada Las Vegas

This photo is the grain morphology of a perovskite film captured in Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) at 35 magnification with a 500-micrometer bar scale. The original image was edited in MS PowerPoint. It has a resemblance to a city view at night when captured from a plane. During every flight, I have experienced a view like this.

22—Space Terror

Arne Froyen, Eindhoven University of Technology

23—Latex Mosaic

Sterre Baker, Eindhoven University of Technology

This SEM image is taken of a latex droplet that was beautiful dried into this artistic structure.

24—Grand Canyon Dam

Jordi Ferrer Orri, University of Cambridge

Tilted SEM of a cracked lead halide perovskite evaporated film on a Si substrate

25—Spaceship Crystal

Martina Volpi, Université Libre de Bruxelles

Polarised light microscopy image of a chiral organic semiconductor.

26—Kaleidoscopic Crystalline Perovskite

Alasdair Tew, University of Cambridge

A MAPbBr3 perovskite thin film presents in a variety of forms. Two images, transmission and fluorescence emission have been combined to form this one. The originally green fluorescent emission has been changed to pink in order to easily distinguish highly emissive areas.

27—Crystalline Dandelion

Peter Krebsbach, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

It is not at all what we wanted, but what we got was even more beautiful. Through the backlight of the optical microscope, the cracked film looks like a dandelion in the center of which you can lose your thoughts whether it is not in fact the eye of the tiger, space travel at the speed of light or a still image of an explosion.

28—Give You My Heart

Hong Wei, University of California, Irvine

This confocal image turns out to be a perfect heart. The edge of the heart comes from fluorescent molecule aggregates. The lighter heart filler is from gold nanoparticle clusters because of the surface-enhanced fluorescence effect.

29—Quirks of Polymer Nanocomposites(PNCs)

Prajakta Prabhune, Duke University

This image exhibits clustered patterns of stress concentration tensor for polymer nanocomposites, obtained through 2D finite element simulations. This research work aims to understand how microstructure anomalies like particle agglomerations affect resulting properties of polymer nanocomposites. The peculiar patterns emerge due to interactions between stress fields caused my individual particles and clusters.

30—Burning Love

Stefano Tagliaferri, Imperial College London

Vanadium disulfide microflakes growing around and on the top of large vanadium oxide crystals, resembling blue flames consuming a rose. Image acquired using FE-SEM at a magnification of 9.25k X (colorized)

31—Planet X: A Hidden Planet

Ji Young Kim, Seoul National University

The image shows the Ti-Ta-Hf-Zr-Nb High entropy alloy (HEA) particles fabricated by gas atomization. Since the particle's surface has a planet-like structure, it is expressed as a hidden planet, Planet X, which has not yet been discovered. The original image was obtained using TESCAN MIRA 3 Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FE-SEM).

32—The Colors of the Unicorn

Adrian Rodriguez-Palomo, Chalmers University of Technology

Narwhals are unique animals that have fascinated humans for centuries due to their "unicorn-like" spiralled tusk. The origin and function of this tusk is still a mystery; however, like other biological materials, narwhal tusk has an impressive three-dimensional hierarchical structure from the nano to the macro scale. In this image, the cross-section of a narwhal tusk was measured using birefringence microscopy. The different orientations of the collagen fibrils in the tusk interact with polarised light, changing its polarisation angle and phase, which is later measured by the microscope camera. This information is then processed in an image where poorly oriented collagen appears in grey tones. On the other hand, highly ordered collagen show bright colours corresponding to the different in-plane orientations, as in this rainbow-like pattern. No artificial post-processing colouring has been applied for aesthetic purposes. These bio mineralised tissues are advanced composite materials created by nature with impressive properties that emerge through complex hierarchical structures. The study of such natural structures is a source of inspiration for scientists and engineers to create new bio-inspired materials with enhanced properties and new functionalities in fields like medicine, architecture, energy storage, catalysis and more. Author: Adrian Rodriguez-Palomo. Co-authors: Marianne Liebi, Jonas Palle, Nina Kølln Wittig, Henrik Birkedal, Eva Garde, Mads Peter Heide Jørgensen.

33—Silkworm's "LEGO" Bricks

Ori Brookstein, Weizmann Institute of Science

Cryo-SEM image of a fracture in the exoskeleton of a silkworm's head, after freeze-fracture.

34—Lithium Nightmares

Xin Xu, Stanford University

We all want stronger and safer batteries for phones and cars. The secondary electron image you are seeing illustrates the promise and peril of a new kind of battery, which uses lithium metal and a solid electrolyte to store energy. The dark region in our image is the electrolyte while the orange structures are lithium metal. Before this image was taken a small tungsten probe was touched to the surface of the solid electrolyte and an electrical potential applied between the tip, and a counter electrode of lithium metal (not shown). The applied potential “pumps” the lithium through the solid and deposits it on the surface, resulting in the large lithium wire seen in the middle in orange. This is good news for the battery because lithium is growing at a rate that would allow for a 10-minute charge of your phone battery. But at some point, the lithium wire stops growing and instead the lithium is seen cracking the electrolyte as it grows through the ceramic: the filaments destined to destroy the battery. This process is very mysterious, and the colors emphasize how the spooky lithium can have a wild mind of its own. The image was taken by FEI Helios NanoLab 600i DualBeam SEM/FIB.

35—Solar Girl with a Pearl Earring

Jeroen Hustings, Hasselt University

One of the world's first "photovoltaic photographs" - i.e. semi-transparent solar cells with an integrated image that generate electricity when illuminated - picturing the "Girl with a Pearl Earring" of Johannes Vermeer (1632 – 1675). The concept developed at the cross-disciplinary research group X-LAB (Belgium) consists of a patterned 2D-photoactive layer through a direct photo-induced process. The shown "Solar Girl"-prototype is a dye-sensitized solar cell using anthocyanins; natural dyes that are found in fruits, berries, flower petals, ... This process could be combined with other PV technologies to enhance the aesthetic and creative possibilities of solar cells – blending 'the power of beauty' and 'the beauty of solar power'...

36—Discovery of a new Hawaïan island by HRSTEM

37—Tripod Flowers

Florian Pantle, Walter Schottky Institut, TU Munich

Colorized scanning electron microscopy of gallium nitride tripods. These nanostructures are formed under non-optimized growth conditions instead of nanowires during molecular beam epitaxy. The distance between the centers of the individual tripods is 500 nm.

38—Controlled Garden Blossoming

Sofia Drakopoulou, Ecole des Mines de Saint Etienne

The picture represents the topography of Pentacene on silicon substrate taken by Atomic Force Microscopy. Sometimes the microscope brings you to another world with peculiar behavior of materials, which with your imagination can be transformed to a beautiful garden with flowers of different sizes and different morphologies.

39—Locking Down Levity

Eli Nygren, University of California, Santa Cruz

This photo was originally taken, with my phone camera, of a water and oil emulsion which had resulted from the night's cooking. I took it at the very beginning of the pandemic "lockdown", giving the title its double entendre. This emulsion was in a clear bottom container, allowing the golden color of the oil to really pop. I then processed the image using a Python image manipulation script that I wrote. The bottom portion has only a very minimal saturation gradient applied. The middle (green) portion has first had its 'red' channel inverted and scaled down, and subsequently had each color channel value "binned" into only the locations of the original peak values, giving a graphic art look. The top portion is an inversion of the entire original image. I then blended the images along lines specified by user.

40—Micro Water Lily

Jason Delente, Trinity College Dublin

41—High Resolution Hydrogel Vase

42—Desert Sands

Kevin Golovin, University of Toronto

False-coloured optical image of a sol-gel processed silica film, formed from tetraethoxysilane and deposited on an acrylic sheet. Upon heating the silica surface cracks to form a surface quite reminiscent of the cracked desert ground!

43—My Vision

Linda Waldherr, Medical University of Graz

This is how I foresee my science to result in the application in the human: treating brain cancer with the help of materials science.

44—Air Drag Reducing Microstructure Surface (ARMS)

Daniel Lim, University of California, Berkeley

Microstructure pattern on a metal surface, inspired by shark skin's ability to reduce skin drag, reduces air drag. This one-of-a-kind patterned structure could be viewed as a work of art in science and design.

45— Niobium Ferns

Kate Reidy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Here, we deposit nanoislands of the superconducting metal, niobium, onto a 2D material, graphene. The result is a fractal-dendritic niobium film growth that is epitaxial with the underlying 2D material lattice. Shown here is a high angle annular dark field (HAADF) transmission electron microscopy (TEM) image of the heterostructure. Tailoring such epitaxy at the interface between two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) materials influences properties such as contact resistance, photo-response, and high-frequency electrical performance of nanoscale devices.

46—The Strength in Silica

Amrutha Augustine, Trinity College Dublin

Here we show a blade structure fabricated using Direct Laser Writing and imaged using Scanning Electron Microscopy. Silica particles, of the size of 785 nm are embedded in the polymer providing additional strength, thus preventing the blades from collapsing.

47—Super Mario MXene World

Anupma Thakur, Indiana University-Purdue University

A multilayered MXene flake visualized as Yoshi from Super Mario. MXene world truly, is the best! Go varoom! Scale bar is 1 micron. (Team: Nithin Chandran, Kartik Nemani, and Babak Anasori)

48—Boxes of Treasure

Luisa Lavelle, Trinity College Dublin

A collection of boxes filled with treasure. This is a microscope image showing frames made of silver nanoparticles encased in polymer cuboids, all created via direct laser writing.

49—Lab-Grown Beef: Burger Nucleation and Growth

Eveline Postelnicu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

SEM image of Ge evaporated at room temperature onto a Si substate, with nucleation and growth effects highlighted via digital illustrations of cheeseburgers.

50—Patiently Waiting

Richard Andres Ortiz Godoy, University of Connecticut

This is a bright-field TEM micrograph of Platinum on carbon nanoparticles mixed with oleylamine. To me, the shadowy almost human silhouette in a standing upright (kind of monk-like) position and looking ahead represents our willingness as scientists to wait months, years, or decades for some inspiring and/or affirming results.