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Posted: September 17, 2004
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These bouquets, petals, and trees are actually tiny bundles of wires that have been created in the laboratory. Each flower is several microns long, which is several billionths of a meter.
The wires are made of a material called silicon carbide, and researchers hope to use these wires to develop the next generation of electronic devices.
Scientists “grew” the flowers by putting droplets of liquid metal on a silicon chip. By changing the temperature and pressure in the experiment, they can weave the wires into three-dimensional shapes such as flowers.
The flowers were made and photographed by Ghim Wei Ho, a graduate student at the Nanoscale Center at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. All images are copyright Ghim Wei Ho. — Kate Ruder
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