Recently, employees wandering down the halls of The Aerospace Corporation's Physical Sciences Laboratories (PSL) building in El Segundo may have wondered if they accidentally stepped into an art gallery rather than a lab. About 40 creative images adorned the walls, with titles like “The Optical Edge” and “Beam Me Up!”
Aerospace hosted a Labs Image Challenge earlier this summer, inviting staff to submit the best imagery from their labs and work. The scientists did not disappoint, pulling images from microscopes and CubeSats and showcasing everything from thrusters to transistors.
“These photos showcase the great work that happens at Aerospace—with an artistic flair,” said Timothy Graves, General Manager of PSL. “There were a lot of awesome entries, making it difficult to pick the best.”
First prize went to Paul Adams, Senior Scientist in the Materials Science Department, for his image “FESEM Hallucinations a la Salvador Dali.” Surreal enough to be in an abstract art collection, this masterpiece was created with a Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM) and a spherical insulator.
Adams swept the competition by a large margin, but other submissions were also deemed prize-worthy (and garnered their creators a cool PSL coffee mug).
Normally broken components cause consternation for programs, but turns out, they also make for great imagery, as evidenced by this submission from Project Leader Chelsea Appleget and Sam Dunscombe of the Advanced Materials Processing Department. The colorful explosion that took second place, “How Sprinkles are Made,” is actually a delaminating sample from the Thin Films Lab.
Similarly, Arielle Little’s busted wafer got her a tie for third prize with its stained-glass looking effect. Little is a research scientist in the Optical and Photonic Systems and her “Micro-feathers on Micro-optics” might be the first time someone actually appreciated contaminants getting into their sample.
As a physics research scientist in the Space Sciences Department, Christine Gabrielse’s exploration of atmospheric science led her to a workshop in Texas, where she captured the other third-place image, featuring the diamond-ring effect of the eclipse in “Diamonds are a Sun’s Best Friend.” Colleagues obviously thought her work sparkled.
Other entries included a reflective take on Aerospace’s logo (‘A’ Look in the Mirror), a CT scan of a breakfast pastry (Donut Forget), simulated sunshine (Let There Be Light), and a chilly lapel pin (Cir-Cool-A).
Winners were selected by popular vote, with staff marking ballots as they walked through the makeshift photo gallery in A6. There was also an online voting option for those not able to attend in person.
Employees perusing the artwork in the halls were also challenged to exercise their verbal creativity by jotting down alternate titles alongside the corresponding images. Suggested names were plentiful:
- A fingerprint captured using a handheld interferometer was labeled “Yubikey POV”
- The winning photo could be “The New Dr. Who Opening”
- An AeroCube image of Qatar including Shahaniyah Camel Racetrack was dubbed “Low-Res Camel Racing Photofinish”
- With a nod to A6’s affinity for donuts, the donut CT Scan is arguably “El SeGlutenDough”
While some of these employees might have a career in creative writing (or standup comedy), they shouldn’t quit their day job. Their expertise in materials, electronics, photonics and more doesn’t just generate cool pictures. It solves tough customer problems and enables new technology for space day in and day out. Capturing clever photos is fun but supporting the nation’s space enterprise—that’s the bigger picture.
Enjoy more submissions below:
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“A” Look in the Mirror: Additively manufactured aluminum mirrors are the key to the next generation of high performance optics. Pictured here is a high stiffness, lightweight, infrared imaging quality, additively manufactured aluminum. -
Beam Me Up!: Plasma plume in a physical vapor deposition (PVD) magnetron sputtering chamber. This chamber is used to create optical coatings and thin films, which are essential for sensor systems, thermal control strategies and photovoltaic power sources. -
A Sunny Perspective: Image of the April 2024 eclipse from the Sun’s point of view. Generated in SOAP using high resolution Moon/Earth maps. SOAP (Satellite Orbit Analysis Program) is Aerospace’s interactive 3D orbit visualization and analysis program. -
Bubbles and Ghost: Medium: hydrocarbon droplets on CTAR-coated fused silica Contamination control plays a key role in mitigating performance degradation for space systems such as optics, solar arrays, and thermal control systems. (CTAR coating = contamination-tolerant antireflection coating). -
Cir-Cool A: Radiance map of Circle A pin. Measuring the thermal radiation emmitted from a material allows us to measure its temperature. This Circle A pin was dipped in a container of liquid nitrogen, which has a boiling point of -196 degrees Celsius, immediately before taking this radiance map. -
Cool Tubes on a Chip: Conductive polymer nanotubes grown on sensor chip. -
Diamonds are a Sun’s Best Friend: This photo is a compilation of three parts of the eclipse observed April 8, 2024 with totality sandwiched between two “diamond rings”, a visual effect that appears immediately before and after totality. -
Donut Forget: A colorized 3D render of CT scan of a breakfast pastry used for characterization of foam analysis capabilities in Volume Graphics Studio Max 2024. Donut forget to sprinkle some fun into your day. -
FESEM Carbon Nanotubes a la Jackson Pollack: Colorized Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) image of carbon nanotubes. Field of view is 2.5 microns. -
FESEM Hallucinations a la Salvador Dali: When featureless flat insulators are examined in the Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM), they act as mirrors and produce an image of the interior of the chamber. -
FIB Cut or Marvin the Martian Helmet? Focused ion beam (FIB) cut exposes the interior of one of the many silver telluride spheres that form along a silver edge during a silver surface treatment. Aerospace scientists use an arsenal of analytical techniques to obtain detailed information about micro- and nano-scale structures and their chemical composition. -
Find the Hidden ‘A’: Closeup of motor mount plate used on the DiskSat dispenser. A DiskSat is a new flat circular satellite that has all the capabilities of standard AeroCubes but in a new form factor that provides greater surface area for solar cells and payloads. -
FinFET Forest: The Microelectronics Lab has state of-the-art tools for analyzing structure and defects in modern microelectronic devices down to the atomic scale. This is a cross-sectional Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) and Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDXS) compositional maps tryptych for 7 nm node FinFETs (Fin Field Effect Transistor). -
Focus on the Prize: Artsy portrait focus style picture of 3D printed sample with 1 micron thick thin film coating in front of lab tools such as in instron. -
Follow Every Trace (FET): The Microelectronics Lab has state of-the-art tools for analyzing structure and defects in modern microelectronic devices down to the atomic scale. This is a plan-view (horizontal view from above) Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) and Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDXS) compositional maps tryptych for 5 nm node FinFETs (Fin Field Effect Transistor). -
Fractal before Fracture: Optical coatings and thin films are essential for sensor systems, thermal control strategies and photovoltaic power sources. This is a differential Interference Contrast (DIC) micrograph of an oxide multilayer coating with high residual stress. It’s a witness sample with ~100 layers of SiOx, TaOx, Si, Ge, etc. layers that has started to have a large (>500 µm) delamination region with fractal-like edges. The DIC imaging mode makes the circular delamination regions have high contrast. -
Giant’s Causeway–Silver Telluride Style: Silver telluride formed during a silver surface treatment breaks through the treated surface in the form of pillars. Aerospace scientists use an array of analytical techniques to identify unusual products from new chemical reactions and to understand how they may impact spacecraft component performance. -
Glitch in the Matrix: This was captured using a 4D Inspec, a handheld interferometer primarily utilized in aviation settings for pass/fail assessments. The image, which appears distorted, resulted from an attempt to scan a penny, leading to a technical glitch. -
How Sprinkles are Made: Optical coatings and thin films are essential for sensor systems, thermal control strategies and photovoltaic power sources. This Nikon Differential Interference Contrast (DIC) optical micrograph stitched together shows fractal-like edges of a delaminating film. -
I Read There Was a Heat Wave: Thermal (IR) image of a developer kit used for the Edge Node Lite payload of AeroCube 18, showing where the SSD drive gets hot, in order to inform the thermal design of the spacecraft. -
Impressionist Contamination Drips: Unknown cleaning residue left on substrate is imaged with Nikon microscope. The robust contamination control program at Aerospace plays a key role in mitigating contamination effects on performance degradation of space systems such as optics, solar arrays, and thermal control systems. -
Let There Be Light: Simulating sunlight inside a vacuum chamber for space environment testing. -
Light at the End of EP3: Aerospace’s large vacuum chamber for testing electric propulsion thrusters. -
Melting Away the Silicon: A FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) chip. The silicon has been chemically etched away, except for upper left corner. -
Micro-feathers on Micro-optics: SiO2 (silica) contaminant flakes on a LiNbO3 (lithium niobate) create strange crystals after being baked at high temperatures. The crystals refract visible light, allowing us to see many colors. The optical waveguide for the integrated photonic devices we are trying to make can be seen cutting through the center of the image. Unfortunately the contaminants ruined this wafer, but at least it looks cool! -
Precision Meets Identity: 4D InSpec Fingerprinting: This was captured using a 4D Inspec, a handheld interferometer primarily utilized in aviation settings for pass/fail assessments. I directed the 4D Inspec at my hand and captured the snapshot. The colormap in this image represents a heightmap of the ridges and valleys of my fingerprints. -
Qatar at 3 am from an AeroCube: AeroCube SiOnyx XQE-9950 image of Doha, Qatar. Collected at 2024 Apr 29 00:10 UTC, Local time was 2024 Apr 29 03:10 GMT+3. Includes Shahaniyah Camel Racetrack in top right. Aerospace has been a pioneer in the design, construction and flight of small satellites. -
Rings, Ripples & Residuals: While modeling an optical system with a ring of sparse apertures (essentially like the James Webb Space Telescope, but much simpler), we felt the need to switch to a higher precision dataset. When we regenerated the two-dimension (2D) Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) image at the higher precision, we didn’t see an obvious difference. So we subtracted the two images from one another, and this was the result. -
Silver Chloride Micro-Discs: Unexpected chemistry from a simple silver surface treatment resulted in the growth of unprecedented silver chloride disc-like structures aligned perpendicular to the substrate. Aerospace investigates new chemical reactions to inform spacecraft design and to identify potential problems that could arise from introducing new technologies. -
Silver Telluride: Spheres Unexpected solid spheres of silver telluride were found to collect along the edge of a silver sample following a simple silver surface treatment. Aerospace scientists use an array of analytical techniques to identify unusual products from chemical reactions and to understand how they may impact spacecraft component performance. -
Stressed Out Coatings: Optical coatings and thin films are essential for sensor systems, thermal control strategies and photovoltaic power sources. Differential Interference Contrast (DIC) micrograph of an oxide multilayer coating with high residual stress. This is a witness sample with ~100 layers of SiOx, TaOx, Si, Ge, etc. layers that has started to have delamination regions. The DIC imaging mode makes the circular delamination regions have high contrast. -
Superhuman Strength: Brian is “lifting” the Dispenser for the DiskSat program. The Dispenser launches four DiskSats. A DiskSat is a new flat circular satellite that has all the capabilities of standard AeroCubes but in a new form factor that provides greater surface area for solar cells and payloads. -
Tellurium Tribble Close-up: Tellurium by-product from a simple silver surface reaction found to crystallize along substrate cracks into unique spiky structures with delicate and intricate features. Aerospace evaluates novel chemical reactions to understand their impact on space systems. -
Tellurium Tribble with Tribblets: Tellurium by-product from a simple silver surface reaction found to crystallize into unique spiky structures that are surprisingly mobile along surface defect lines such as cracks. Aerospace scientists investigate such unusual chemical behavior to evaluate its impact on spacecraft performance and to develop mitigation methods if necessary. -
The Optical Edge: An unknown optic and its attached thermocouple rest neatly in their mount. The optic’s outermost edge is laser illuminated for a fraction of a second, scattering light in all directions. -
This Logo Appeared Out of the Blue: Image from the Vulcan Focal Plane Array with a custom machined Aero logo mask in front of it.