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Cubism at the nanoscale

Nature Nanotechnology volume 2, pages 587–589 (2007)Cite this article

Some of the most famous images in nanoscience and technology have been produced by scanning probe microscopes but, as Chris Toumey explains, there is much more to these images than meets the eye.

Many discoveries and developments in science have been accepted by other scientists and the world at large because it was possible to see what had been discovered. Examples include the discovery that other planets have moons and developments in osteology (as the study of bones is known) in the age of X-rays. The science was plausible because seeing was believing1. The same is true of nanoscience and nanotechnology, which have earned much of their credibility and profile from the pictures they produce. Because a scientist can present us with detailed before-and-after pictures of a surface that has been modified, or of atoms that have been picked up and placed elsewhere, we can believe that he or she has truly done those operations.

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Figure 1: Picasso's Les Demoiselles D'Avignon, the first cubist painting, represented a new way of seeing objects by showing the same subject from a number of different angles. (Courtesy of the Bridgeman Art Library.)
Figure 2: Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase showed that it was possible to include a temporal dimension in paintings. (Courtesy of the Bridgeman Art Library.)

© Succession Marcel Duchamp/ ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2007 AAAS IBM

Figure 3: This scanning electron micrograph of a silicon carbide nano flower was originally a greyscale image.

M. Welland and G. W. Ho, Nanoscience Centre, University of Cambridge

Figure 4

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chris Toumey is at the University of South Carolina NanoCenter. Toumey@sc.edu,

    Chris Toumey

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  1. Chris Toumey
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Toumey, C. Cubism at the nanoscale. Nature Nanotech 2, 587–589 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2007.310

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