Record Grooves Under an Electron Microscope

[Riisu]

General interest?
I think so......

http://www.synthgear.com/2010/audio-gear/record-grooves-electron-microscope/

Chris Supranowitz is a researcher at The Insitute of Optics at the University of Rochester. Along with a number of other spectacular studies (such as quantum optics, trapping of atoms, dark states and entanglement), Chris has decided to look at the relatively boring grooves of a vinyl record using the institute’s electron microscope. Well, not boring for me.

From what I read, it’s not just a simple matter of sticking a record under a fancy microscope, as there is a lot of preparation (such as gold-sputtering the surface) and post-processing to be done. Having said that, the results are very cool:

Here is a shot of a number of record grooves (the dark bits are the top of the grooves, i.e. the uncut vinyl):

Here’s the grooves closer up – the little bumps are dust on the record:

And here’s a single groove even closer still, magnified 1000 times:

Chris also did the pits in a CD – here’s what they look like, just for contrast:

Chris decided to take the whole electron microscope image one step further, and created a blue/red 3-dimensional image of the record groove! So, if you have a pair of 3D glasses (sorry, the ones you got from watching Avatar won’t work – you need red on the left, blue on the right), throw them on and take a look at this amazing picture:

Maybe these vinyl grooves are only beautiful to an audio geek like me, but I think that these images are truly spectacular. I wonder what we’d see if it was magnified further still? Thanks to noiseforairports for the tip.

 

[Jakue08]

thats actually pretty sweet, good find

 

[Riisu]

Shoulda said shouts to Guy from Commix for posting a link on twitter the other day. Meant to make a thread then but forgot

 

[safety]

wow, it's like looking at records if my eyes were a thousand times more powerful, which makes me wonder why i would need to and if i needed to, why didn't nature provide me with more powerful eyes or why don't pressing factories just make records a thousand times bigger so that my eyes don't have to feel inadequate?

 

[safety]

and by the way, scroll down and under "similar threads" view my thread... "beard hairs under a microscope". i can promise you it's as equally pointless and ultimatley dissapointing*

 

[co0ke]

absolutely beautiful. awesome post

 

[ali^]

niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice
would love to see a close up of a scratch on a record too

 

[TongueFlap]

riisu you vinyl geek good find man

 

[muzzadj]

great find.. now i see why the needle wobbles left and right a bit!

 

[Saint]

Fanx bro

 

[groelle]

nice! good find, thanks

 

[moriaty]

that's well cool, really looks like a hilly landscape. would love to board down them slopes!

 

[rob1]

The real close up one of a single groove is so sick. Looks like a valley or something. Can just picture the needle riding round them grooves

 

[ilovelondon]

that's fucking sick!

good find man

 

[DJ Spliff]

Cool. I can't believe we get the sound quality that we do from those dirty, dusty Grand Canyon looking grooves.

 

[ilovelondon]

Cool. I can't believe we get the sound quality that we do from those dirty, dusty Grand Canyon looking grooves.

if you say it like that...

 

[BoudiCat]

Coooooooooool. Tahnks wees.