unfoldscience

The convergence between technological and natural objects at the micro- and nanoscale has been long emphasized, including by Stanley Fields ¹ whose declaration has become famous:

Because technology provides the tools and biology the problems, the two should enjoy a happy marriage.

Although this statement is awfully simplistic, biology and technology do enjoy a happy marriage, and I was thrilled to experience it during the last three years. My Ph.D work has been very interdisciplinary and I wanted to dedicate a special section of my thesis to how cool, yet difficult, it is to work at the crossroads of biology, chemistry, physics & technology. Because an image is worth a thousand words, I assembled a nice comparison of various reference biological objects and technological devices at the micro- and nanoscale. Most of the images I used were available on Wikimedia Commons and I made the others.

Biological and technological scales compared

The source file is vector graphics, i.e. it can be resized at will without loss of quality or pixelation. It is released under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license, which means you are free to use it, modify it, redistribute it for any purpose as long as you appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute any derivative works only under the same license.

Links

• Download the vector graphics source file (SVG, 1.46 MB)
• See the author & licensing information page on Wikimedia Commons, including links to all the images used in this one

Notes

Preview of the poster

In January I attended the Biodevices conference in Funchal, Madeira. Biodevices is short for International conference on biomedical electronics and devices. I presented a poster there entitled Thermoresponsive polymer-based microdevice for nano-liquid chromatography. We could easily have submitted a talk, but my advisors thought otherwise.

Anyway, I reused the design I made with Scribus for MicroTAS 2007 and I came up with a nice poster that I am now sharing with you. Some PDF viewers may have some trouble displaying this file, because it uses transparency and layers. I recommend to use the latest version of Adobe Reader.

As usual, the whole poster (except the top logos & header) is released under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license, which means you are free to use it, modify it, redistribute it for any purpose as long as you appropriately attribute it to me, and that you distribute any derivative works under the same license.

Links

• Download the high-resolution PDF file (PDF, 4.7 MB)
• Heavy source files available on simple request.

I currently work in the Laboratory for analysis and architecture of systems (Laboratoire d’analyse et d’architectures des systèmes, LAAS) in Toulouse, France. It has recently been seriously extended with two news buildings, one of which is hosting the brand new technological facility. It is mainly composed of a 1500-m² cleanroom used to assemble micro- and nanosystems in a dust-free environment.

Inauguration

This new cleanroom was recently inaugurated by political representatives. As the official photographer for this event, I also had the opportunity to take a few pictures of the facility itself and its equipment. I released them under a free license and uploaded them to Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository.

Opening ceremony

Sample gallery

All these pictures can especially be used to illustrate the relevant articles in Wikipedia, such as Thermal oxidation or Plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition. And once a media file is on Wikimedia Commons, it can be used across all Wikimedia projects, such as Wikipedia in Russian or in Japanese.

Etching tanks

Steppers under inactinic light

Molecular beam epitaxy device

Links

• See the whole category “LAAS technological facility” on Wikimedia Commons

I recently attended the MicroTAS conference in Paris, France. MicroTAS (also known as “µTAS”) is short for International conference on biomedical electronics and devices. I presented a poster there entitled Electrokinetic mixers based on stimuli-responding surfaces. I was also the official photographer for the conference, I will post a few pictures later.

Tools

Most (if not all) of my colleagues use PowerPoint to make their posters. Besides the fact that it is a proprietary and expensive software, it also remains a presentation program suited for, well, presentations. A poster is not a presentation, and there are more suited tools than presentation programs, such as desktop publishing programs.

I have been using an open source desktop publishing software called Scribus, for some time now and I just love it. Scribus supports layered elements, has an awesome color management system and offers a PDF export feature of outstanding quality; it even supported PDF/X-3 export before any other (proprietary) software.

The Great Wave

Posters sessions are usually boring as hell. The presenters often forget that researchers who attend a conference have very little time to devote to the posters. I decided to find an original design to attract visitors who would then learn about my research & results. My poster was about a new way to generate waves in microchannels using polymer-based mixers. I looked up in the “Waves” category of Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, and I stumbled upon this old Japanese painting called The Great Wave off Kanagawa. I found a high-resolution, high-quality copy that I used as background image for my A0 poster.

Copy of The Great Wave off Kanagawa

Preview of the poster

Outcome: Look matters

Needless to say, my poster got much more attention than its neighbours. Asian people were particularly excited about it, and they represented a large part of the audience. You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, says the English idiom. It is also true for scientific communication: you can catch more attention from researchers with original, attractive documents than with boring, poorly-designed ones.

And now it is yours

The high-resolution PDF version of the poster is available for download below. Some PDF viewers may have some trouble displaying this file, because it uses transparency and layers. I recommend to use the latest version of Adobe Reader.

As usual, the whole poster (except the top logos & header) is released under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license, which means you are free to use it, modify it, redistribute it for any purpose as long as you appropriately attribute it to me, and that you distribute any derivative works under the same license.

Links

• Download the high-resolution PDF file (PDF, 4.4 MB)
• Heavy source files available on simple request.