Sameer Walavalkar sees beauty in the smallest of objects. That’s because the Caltech applied physicist spends his days building nano-sized structures.
In his profession, he creates tiny silicon structures for use in electronics and medical devices. But he’s passionate about nano-scale art too. He uses a focused ion beam to etch small but intricate drawings. Just how tiny? Under an electron microscope, his art makes salt look big.
The zoomed-in examples below show etchings of Barack Obama juxtaposed against a grain of salt and George Seurat’s iconic painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” next to an eyelash.
Using Kickstarter to gain exposure for his work, Walwavalkar is offering to create custom nano-compositions and blown-up glossy images to donors — chances are you don’t have an electron microscope — who pledge $50 or more.
