Animation: High-resolution images of carbon at the atomic level
20130211_carbon_ball_8GPa.mpg (112.2 MB)
This 66-second movie shows how three-dimensional images can be turned into a movie
of the nano-scale structural and chemical features of a sample, in this case a tiny ball of
glassy carbon coated with platinum. The bright part is platinum and the dark circle (and
later red) is the glassy carbon. A team of researchers at Stanford acquired the images
using X-ray transmission microscopy and a synchrotron radiation lightsource. A
transmission X-ray microscope sees the world with X-rays having a short wavelength
and very high energy so they can penetrate deeply to “see through” objects. Such
glassy carbon may have hardness equal to diamond and thus exist in the extreme high
pressure environments of Earth’s mantle.
Credit: Yu Lin and Wendy L. Mao, Stanford University and Yijin Liu, SLAC National
Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford