nanographs

nanographs, 21 days ago to random

I think it’s possible I’m the first person to be doing dual beam alignments via an iPad (Sidecar).

Unexpected benefits of the Open Beam Interface for the win! The main monitor is facing away from the microscope, but I can just walk around with my iPad to wherever I need to be.

nanographs, 23 days ago to random

Doorstops in Sánchez lab be like

nanographs, 1 month ago to random

We have completed our first Open Beam Interface installation!

Dr. Adam Summers lab at the University of Washington Friday Harbor Marine Biology Labs is now capturing 16x larger scans than was possible before.

Big milestone for us, first time delivering our open source hardware to a customer.

Get in touch if you too want us to upgrade your SEM.

Picture of the front of the SEM with the open beam interface software running on an iMac
Picture of the open beam interface circuit board on the back of a SEM, many orange labels on all of the cables.

nanographs, 1 month ago to random

Talking to some other microscope engineers about the cables we are making and how much machined (as opposed to stamped) contacts for small gauge wires cost:
"What are the contacts made out solid gold?"
"No they are only coated in 30µm"

nanographs, 2 months ago to random

This is a relay diagram.

They take us for fools.

nanographs, 2 months ago to random

Used a sphere of plastic and the Open Beam Interface to capture Electron Microscope selfies on our JEOL JSM 6400 SEM from the 80s.

I charged the sphere with a 20kV beam, then dropped the beam energy to 3kV to bounce the beam off the sphere and image the inside of the SEM.

The hole in the center of the frame is the bottom of the column and where the beam came from. The springs and linkages around the edge of the frame is the SEMs stage.

nanographs, 2 months ago to random

Spinning a Glasgow to M8 breakout for us to connect microscope blanking and scan selectors to.

nanographs, 2 months ago to random

Hey anyone here decent with magnets field simulations in COMSOL? Helping a friend find someone for a paid consulting gig.

nanographs, 2 months ago to random

Stood up our new Open Beam Interface gateware with
@whitequark and @isabel tonight. These are most of the images it took to debug the new gateware.

nanographs, 2 months ago to random

Introducing the first open source SEM digital image capture solution, the Open Beam Interface!

GitHub: https://github.com/nanographs/Open-Beam-Interface

Bring your analog SEM into the digital world, all over one USB type-C connection.

Taking orders now for our first batch of 6 boards, DM for details.

FIB image of a diatom with a chunk cut away
FIB image if a MEMS microphone
FIB image of an ICE40 with a large trench cut in it

nanographs, 2 months ago to random

Captured some scans under the SEM and FIB of the AMG8833 Grideye 8x8 thermal camera using our Open Beam Interface.

The FIB milled out the rectangle, revealing in cross section wires looping around forming a thermistor. Under each pixel is a KOH etched void for thermal isolation.

Medium mag SEM image showing the corner of one of the pixels, and a rectangular cross section of a trench.
High mag FIB image of the cross section showing the wires buried under a layer of silicon, and a void behind the pixel.

nanographs, 3 months ago to random

TFW you work on electron microscope controls with @whitequark and she immediately turns it all into a compiler problem. Watching her write Amaranth is something else, @isabel and I learned a ton!

https://mastodon.social/@whitequark/111987067448322106

nanographs, 3 months ago to random

Realized that we haven't yet come across an old SEM that we didn't get into a good shape in about 2 weeks (except the one I got in high school), looking at offering this as a service.

Also, we have folks trying to re-home some JEOL 840s right now, so here's what we're thinking:

Picture of a JEOL 840 with a Diatom on screen
Picture of water cooled electronics bay with many colored wires
Picture of stage, poll piece, and back scatter detector inserted

nanographs, 3 months ago to random

We sliced some diatoms open with a beam of gallium ions.

Radiation sign diatom except with a large chunk of it missing
Top down view of a diatom with a bunch of holes in it
Side view showing the lower 1/4 of it ablated away

nanographs, 3 months ago to random

Used an ICE40 to FIB mill a big hole (the size of a small hole) in an ICE40.

nanographs, 4 months ago to random

Came in and started up on of our SEMs and had a classic "whats that burning smell investigation...

Pretty sure its "normal" but wrote a post about it. Long story short there is a resistor heating up to (gasp) 650°F!

https://datacore.nanographs.io/000+Publish/6400+CRT+1+Balast+Resistor+Heating

nanographs, 4 months ago to random

Open hardware, coming soon to a (electron or other) microscope near you.

North, 5 months ago to random

So... it took until I received my $80 chunk of stainless steel from Duniway to realize that my deep discount ion gauge is actually not 0.75" tubulated. Despite there being no part# that I can find for a 0.5" tubulated gauge, that's what this appears to be.

The good news is, that makes it compatible with the MUCH cheaper and more common 15.5mm ion gauge adapters. Besides, I'll get some use out of this 0.75" adapter down the road.

Everyone join me in admiring the expensive nugget.

azonenberg, 5 months ago to random

The now-very-crowded optics bench. I definitely need to spend some time over Christmas vacation tidying up the lab.

breakingtaps, 6 months ago to random

Lithography is hard, but litho over a centimeter is really hard! 😅

Test photomask for 10:1 reduction. Stitching, normalizing exposures, development, etching. Was a battle to get it all working but starting to get there.

Can see the stitch misalignment every 400µm. Errors are ~3µm, so 300nm at final resolution. Min feature is 2µm, so in theory it should be ok 🫣

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