Science is art in yearly PANIC photo contest

Microscopic image of stopping flow in a microfluidic chip

University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering PhD student Madhu Prakash was one of the winners of the Pritzker Nanofabrication Facility's yearly photo contest with this image, entitled "Mosaic."

Every winter, the Pritzker Nanofabrication Facility (PNF) Annual Nanofabrication Image Contest, better known as PANIC, allows scientists to share the beautiful, inspiring and even humorous images they uncover during their research. 

This year’s winners, announced Monday, found art in quantum bugs, wobbly resonators and other images at the smallest scales of science. 

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"A Few Too Many" This circular Bragg resonator should have been cut off a while ago. Underexposing it caused the rings to be untethered during an acid clean, allowing them to drift around a little and attain their nonconcentricity. (Photo by Sean Yuan, High Group)
"Quantum Beetle" This is a superconducting quantum processor consisting of two daughterboards flip-chip assembled on a common motherboard. There are 3 qubits on each daughterboard, and the coupling circuits (square with six feet) are on the motherboard. The qubits and the coupler in the center as a whole look like a beetle, and thus the name. (Photo by Xuntao Wu, Cleland Group)
"Mosaic" A beautiful byproduct of stopping flow in a microfluidic chip overnight. These beautiful mosaic-like patterns are the result of water-in-oil droplets evaporating in a microfluidic chamber. The residual color comes from droplets originally containing food dye. The unique shapes and outlines come from the merging of different droplets during the evaporation process.
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"A Few Too Many" This circular Bragg resonator should have been cut off a while ago. Underexposing it caused the rings to be untethered during an acid clean, allowing them to drift around a little and attain their nonconcentricity. (Photo by Sean Yuan, High Group)

The Pritzker Nanofabrication Facility is a major research facility at UChicago specializing in advanced lithographic processing of hard and soft materials. Located in the Eckhardt Research Center on the UChicago campus, the PNF focuses on supporting basic science, applied research, research and development, and prototype production using micro- and nanofabrication.