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Published 2015 | Version v2.0.0
Pictorial Work Open

Aligning the Rainbow

Boekhoven, Job

Description

2015 Fourth Place This wavy image is a field of long, thin nanofibers. These spaghetti-like fibers are thinner than 1/10,000th of a human hair, and just like hair, they can lay in straight lines or get tangled up in nests.Each individual fiber is too small to see, even with a microscope, so the researchers have applied a special computer program to observe how and where the fibers align. Wherever a large clump of fibers lies in the same direction, that area is brightly colored. Wherever it is black, the fibers are all facing different directions.The individual colors assigned depend on the angle of the fibers. Red patches show places where the strands lay horizontally while green and blue areas are vertically aligned. This is easiest to see around the edges of the black circle (a tiny air bubble). The fibers bend around the bubble, lying at each angle along its edge, creating a rainbow.Department of Materials Science & EngineeringTools & Techniques: Fluorescence Microscope + colored in ImageJ

Abstract

This image originally appeared as part of Northwestern's Scientific Images Contest. The contest and subsequent exhibitions are organized by Science in Society, the university's research center for science education and public engagement. Further information and opportunities to participate are available on their website. Prints and canvas editions of these Northwestern research images can also be purchased online (with the small net profit going to science education and outreach programming in the Chicago area).

Other

number_in_sequence: 4

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4th Job Boekhoven 2015.jpg
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Additional details

Created:
March 31, 2023
Modified:
March 31, 2023