A portrait of neon hedgehogs in a nanosphere garden

(Image: Materials Research Society Science as Art Competition and Joong Hwan Bahng, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor)

This jostling family of garish hedgehogs is not just a playful picture ? it shows the serious business of analysing a novel material. You're looking at zinc oxide growing on the outside of tiny spherical particles, as seen through the lens of a scanning electron microscope.

With colour added to the monochrome original, this picture ? taken by Joon Hwan Bahng of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor ? bagged first prize in the Materials Research Society's biannual competition, Science as Art.

The judges picked out this image for its beauty and its power to reveal visually how the rough surface of a microsphere can affect the growth of crystals.

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