2026, August
Born to Shine
Pauline Pradal, PROUD SA
The image reveals a synthetic diamond layer grown in-house using our reactor and deposited directly onto a standard silicon wafer. With no post-processing treatment, the surface naturally exhibits a certain roughness, characterized by large crystalline grains and their remarkable shapes! The image was acquired using a Crossbeam 550 at CMi.
Lost in the microverse
Mathis Guffroy, LWE
Somewhere between a distant galaxy and an unknown planet, this microscopic landscape turns a few hundred micrometers into an entire universe.
Nanoleaf
Jiajie Gao, MoleSense
Like fallen gold leaves drifting down on a cold autumn day, these warm amber clusters stack gently upon one another, piling into soft, glowing mounds above a deep blue frost-covered ground. Below, the earth is scattered with countless teal crystal shards — thin, sharp, and cold — like the brittle remnants of a winter forest floor. Gold rests upon frost, warmth upon cold, layer upon silent layer, as if nature simply let go and let it all fall quietly into place.
Cauliflower Grown on the Wafer
Saurabh Kumar Gupta, SUPMICROTECH-ENSMM
High-magnification InLens SEM imaging shows a dense, cauliflower-like particulate residue sitting on the wafer surface. The structure consists of agglomerated, nanometer-scale spherical nodules (50 nm to 200 nm) forming a porous, three-dimensional mass. The image was acquired using a Crossbeam 550 at CMi.
The Uninvited Bloom
Xinru Ji, LPQM1
An unidentified particle rests at the center of an etched SiO2 landscape, blooming like a microscopic flower. Whether cleanroom debris or accidental nanoscopic art, contamination has rarely looked so well composed.
A New Planet in CMi
Maria Chani Mihaescu
, LMGN
A nanoscale world captured with the SEM CrossBeam, looking every bit like a freshly discovered planet still waiting for a name. The whole thing would comfortably fit on the tip of an eyelash. Written using the Nanoscribe at CMi and coated with 30nm NbN PEALD.
Nano-Slimer
Valerio Piazza, LMSC
Thermal treatments can induce the formation of unexpected vitreous phases. After months of fabricating your device prototype, you finally cleave your sample to inspect the cross-section and… a flabbergasting slime crawls out of your thin film! At this point, there is only one question: Who ya gonna call?
2026, July
Fuzzy blanket
Matteo Gambato
Guidastri, NEMS
A localized defect, probably caused by high compressive stress, lifted the Molybdenum electrode off the substrate and made it wrinkle. The piezoelectric layer sputtered on top crystallized inhomogenously, giving the surface a fuzzy finish. Looks cozy enough for a micro-nap.
The White Cliffs of Dover, Sculpted in Gold at the Nanoscale
Mikhail Masharin, BIOS
No trip to southern England was needed for this view. This SEM image captures the edge of a gold metasurface fabricated on an aluminum film at CMi using electron-beam lithography and lift-off. The granular texture of the two metals naturally creates a rugged coastline strikingly reminiscent of the White Cliffs of Dover, only a few hundred nanometers high and sculpted in gold instead of chalk.
The Trampoline’s Curtsy
Leonardo Ossino, NEMS
A SiN trampoline, released and set free, Refused to accept its clamped destiny. With a snap of its arm and a touch of grace, It curtsied goodbye to the cleanroom space.
2026, June
Shine on, diamond star
Pauline Pradal, PROUD SA
The image shows a synthetic diamond layer fabricated in-house using our reactor and deposited on a silicon substrate. No post-processing treatment has been performed, resulting in a rough surface characterized by large crystalline grains, that sometimes have interesting shapes! The image was acquired using a Crossbeam 550 at CMi.
Mini sunset
Diana Dall’Aglio, LNET
Summer is here, who wouldn’t want to be contemplating a moonlit sunset on the sea rather than working in a cleanroom? Still, sometimes the mini views you can find there are not too far off.
Wisdom always comes with wrinkles!
Pauline Pradal, PROUD SA
The image shows unwanted dust on the surface of a synthetic diamond layer fabricated in-house using our reactor and deposited on a silicon substrate. Despite HF cleaning, some contamination remains, similar to wrinkles that leave traces of the past that cannot be fully removed. The image was taken using a Crossbeam 550 at CMi.
2026, May
Three quantum dots
Alberto Bordin, Francesco Zanasi, HQC
Three quantum dots to split one Cooper pair. Paired electrons coming from the middle superconductor (blue strip) can be collected into the middle quantum dot (purple circle) and then separated forever: one electron goes to the left and the other to the right. How long can their entanglement last?
Relentless T
Mohammad Rezaei, POWERLAB
This one has absolutely no merci over electrons. They need to move fast or become gated.
2026, April
Two-photon dragon fossilized
Qingchuan Song, ALCHEMY
The images show a miniature articulated dragon — a hydrogel structure with hinge-connected joints — fabricated using the Upnano Green two-photon printer at CMi. The material is a custom PEG-based photopolymer resin developed in our group, which yields a transparent, mechanically responsive elastomer. The hinge design allows passive joint articulation, and the structure can also undergo swelling-driven actuation in aqueous environments. The image was acquired using the Keyence digital microscope at CMi.
Portal to a Hidden Dimension
Laura Jade Aliénor Amoury, MICROBS
This structure emerged when the process of superimposing two SU-8 photolithography layers failed. In that brief moment where the process forgot its purpose, a fractured doorway appeared, a portal leading straight into another universe.
The 250 nm high dive
Mario Di Luca, LQP
As summer approaches and the days finally get hotter, it is a good time to take a break from fabrication and go for a swim in the lake. Or, what about a dive from the vertiginous height of 250 nm off a gold(en) bridge? Try to land in the small graphite-etched pool, if you can. False-color SEM image captured with the Zeiss Merlin.
Say Cheese!
Samuele Brunetta, LASPE
What happens when the electron-beam dose used to pattern a gold plasmonic antenna is too low? After liftoff, the structure develops nanoscale holes, resembling a microscopic slice of Emmental cheese. Would you take a bite?
Nano Swiss National Flag
Xuxin Wang, Mahdi Chegnizadeh, LPQM
A false-colored SEM image of a lithographically defined dicing marker after liftoff. The marker exhibits a cross-shaped geometry resembling the Swiss national flag. Significant residual contamination is present across the surface after PECVD oxide deposition.
Planet Ta-181
Hao Li, LPQM
This striking image resembles the desolate, rugged surface of a distant, rocky planet, complete with sweeping ridges and deep, shadow-filled valleys. Like an uncharted alien world shaped by ancient cosmic forces and shifting tectonic plates, it reveals the complex, fractured landscape of a Tantalum surface.
2026, March
The Grand Canyon
Timofei Tunekov, Ligentec
Result of SPTS APS full WetOx layer dry etch with PR on top.
Crispy nano-donuts
Berkay Dagli, BIOS
Nano-donuts freshly baked in CMi. These nano-donuts have been prepared using ebeam lithography and subsequent dry etching. As a finishing, they have a crispy analyte layer. This image was captured using a Zeiss SEM Crossbeam.
2026, February
3D Electrodes for Deterministic Cell Pairing in Droplet Microfluidics
Edoardo Bargis, CLSE
A constellation of moons born from tiny nanoholes, emerging from the darkness like impossible worlds, silently aligned in an artificial sky. An image captured through a dark-field microscope, where light reveals only what dares to scatter it.
Platinum curl
Eloi Collette, LANES
When the time came for lift-off after DUV lithography, platinum had other plans. Instead of leaving cleanly, this evaporated thin film lingered and curled around the patterned lines, molding itself around the isolated gates. A reminder that in the cleanroom, materials sometimes follow their own script.
Micro-dinosaur eggs
Rui Ning Wang, Luxtelligence S.A.
Micro-dinosaur eggs were found after performing chip-scale ion-beam etching with a very thick photoresist and very bad thermal contact. The dinosaurs seem to have escaped.
Doped Honeycomb
Francesco Marcantoni, Powerlab
TMAH-worker bees take great pride in their perfect honeycomb. Hexagonal structures are created by combining ICP dry-etching with TMAH wet etching. Followed by regrowth of p-doped GaN, this gives rise to the characteristic contrast of the picture.
Awakening of the Nano-Hive
Erşed Akyüz, BIOS
In a world measured in nanometers, the first generation of “nano-bees” prepares to leave the hive. Some have already taken flight into the void! This hexagonal design is engineered for optical biosensing applications. Following the lift-off process, gold residues remained stuck to the template, unintentionally creating the “nano-bees” that now call this honeycomb their “home”.
2026, January
Choose your moon
Melania Coronese, NEMS
Alessio Zicoschi, LPQM
A constellation of moons born from tiny nanoholes, emerging from the darkness like impossible worlds, silently aligned in an artificial sky. An image captured through a dark-field microscope, where light reveals only what dares to scatter it.
Rainbow ripple
Michael Smith, Sy&Se SA
A void between bonded wafers of silicon and fused silica generates a colourful interference pattern of Newton’s rings. An etched cavity in the silicon wafer distorts the pattern, creating ripples in the interference fringes. The wafer cavities were fabricated using dry etching tools at CMi. The image was captured using a Leica optical microscope at CMi. The wafer bonding was performed with Sy&Se equipment.
The Play of Shadows
Mohammad Rezaei, POWERLAB
This SEM image captures a precisely sculpted nanoscale structure in a patterned resist stack, where sharp edges and suspended features cast dramatic shadows under low-voltage electron illumination. At a few hundred nanometers wide, the image turns an ephemeral fabrication step into an eternal landscape.
A Nanoscale Battlefield
Elif Nur Dayi, LNET
A snapshot of a serious battlefield at 50.000x. Warning: excessive doses during electron-beam lithography (EBL) may cause your amorphous Si nanopillars to develop combat skills.
Gold rush on an aluminum layer
Mikhail Masharin, BIOS
There is a hexagonal lattice of interconnected gold cylinders on top of the aluminum layer. The lattice geometry determines the optical resonances used for the various applications, such as optical sensing.
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