Monkey Montage

A grain of central Australian desert sand was coated in 25 nanometres of pure gold and placed in a scanning electron microscope with focused ion beam capabilities. The programmed ion beam etched 50 nanometres of the surface of the gold and sand away in the "Monkey" pattern of the Peruvian Nazca Lines. The central image is an electron image. The surrounding images were generated using Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy; as an electron beam scans the etched sand, X-ray energies are produced which are characteristic for each element. Each element is assigned a different colour allowing coloured images.