Multimedia Gallery
The word "Lauranne" etched onto a strand of human hair
A scanning electron microscope image reveals the word "Lauranne" etched onto a strand of human hair. The etching was performed by Lauranne Lanz, a high-school student who participated in a month-long summer internship in July 2002 at the National Science Foundation-supported Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) at Johns Hopkins University.
Working in the lab and under the supervision of professor C.L. Chien, director of the MRSEC at Johns Hopkins, her assignment was to use a focused laser beam as a dry etching tool. The apparatus she used involved a high-powered pulsed UV (excimer) laser, focusing lenses and a computer-controlled, moveable sample stage. The laser beam is focused by lenses on a fine spot and effectively performs dry etching by ablating material from the illuminated spot. Lanz wrote a computer program to control the lateral movement of the sample stage to trace out patterns or words of her design in a continuous manner with sub-micron resolution. Simultaneously, her computer program controlled the triggering pulses for the laser light so that each sub-pattern or letter could be separately written. Lauranne first etched patterns and words of increasingly smaller sizes onto flat surfaces. She then explored the feasibility of labeling gemstones for microscopic identification purposes. Finally, on her own initiative, she successfully etched her name onto a strand of her hair as shown in the image.
The MRSEC at Hopkins supports an interdisciplinary research program on nanostructures with enhanced magneto-electronic properties. The research is carried out in one interdisciplinary research group, with appropriate seed projects. The center is engaged in a variety of educational activities including Research Experiences for Undergraduates and Research Experiences for Teachers, an undergraduate fellow program and a high-school teacher internship program. The center supports well maintained, shared experimental facilities that are accessible to outside users, and also interactive efforts within industry and other sectors. (Year of image: 2002)
Credit: Summer high-school internship of Lauranne Lanz, Oalkand Mills High School, under the supervision of prof. C.L. Chien, Johns Hopkins University.
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