“I’m riding in the midnight blue”

By James Dacey

Sizing up at just one fifth the width of a human hair, this must be a very strong contender for the smallest snowman in the world.

His body has been formed by welding together two tin microparticles (10 µm in diameter), which are usually used in the calibration of electron microscopes. A focused ion beam was deployed to etch out his eyes and mouth and a tiny fleck of platinum forms the nose.

The little fella’s creator is researcher David Cox who works at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in London. He was taking time out from his usual job of fabricating devices for the Quantum Detection Group. “I guess I was just born to make stuff,” Cox writes on his homepage.

There is a video on the NPL homepage showing just how Cox sculpted his miniture friend.