How I encountered a Nanodragon in the lab

“Logic will lead you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere”

It was just a regular day at the laboratory. First, I mechanically exfoliated the WS2 (tungsten disulfide) crystal on a silicon dioxide substrate. My goal was to find the thinnest crystal possible to make devices to test optoelectronic applications. After I checked the messy crystals, laid on the square substrate, under an optical microscope; I decided to shift to a Scanning electron microscope (SEM) which was the best option for studying the surface morphology of a material. Unfortunately, the colors disappeared in SEM, because the electrons are used as image sources.

Very carefully and also patiently, I was rolling the mouse up and down in the hope to find something will work for me. Each movement on the sample surface was showing up on the screen in a 5-second delay. I had to endure this slow movement, plus I had to be quick during this analysis because I had a limited time to take images before the next user’s reservation time starts. As time went on, I found a few crystals that could be used in the fabrication process of the device. Took out my lab notebook to write down the position of the crystal on the substrate because the sample surface can be seen with much higher magnification SEM than in an optical microscope. I needed to make my life easier by making notes, which would save me time in the next process.

I was feeling content about the outcome, but something in my head kept telling me to keep looking around for the best. This ambitiousness and perfectionism could either turn me into a hero or a dumb at the end of the day. Nevertheless, I listened to that voice once again.

In the last 10 mins, I did faster scans for each corner of the substrate. In one of these scans, I encountered the Nano Dragon. I was so excited when I looked at the weird shape of the crystal. The funny thing is that I devoted myself to making people believe what I see in my head. In the following days, I installed the photoshop program and started to play with the SEM image of the WS2 crystal. At the end of the day, I was proudly showing the result to my friends.

Even though they laughed at my cute nano dragon, I didn’t give up dreaming because I sincerely believe Einstein’s words: Logic will lead you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

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