« Le savant n’étudie pas la nature parce que c’est utile,
il l’étudie parce qu’il y prend plaisir
et il y prend plaisir parce qu’elle est belle.
Si la nature n’était pas belle
elle ne vaudrait pas la peine d’être connue,
la vie ne vaudrait pas la peine d’être vécue ».
Henri Poincaré
Red Daisy, Nguyen TK Thanh, 2001
This image was captured using Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) at 8000 times magnification during the work on the immuno-aggregation assay based on protein coated gold nanoparticles. The whole flower containing few tens of billion of gold nanoparticles aggregated due to specific interaction between protein A and anti-protein A (Nguyen TK Thanh and Zeev Rosenzweig, Anal Chem, 2002, 74, 1624).
Beautiful heart, Nguyen TK Thanh, 2004
Cobalt nanoparticles self-assembled naturally to form many beautiful images. This image of 100 000 times magnification of 10 nm cobalt nanoparticles self-assembled was taken during my research of designing and fabrication of magnetic nanoparticles for biomedical applications.
It was a runner up in a "Small is Beautiful" image competition organised by Micro and Nanotechnology Network UK. It was exhibited in London in Dec 2005.
It is permanently displayed at Image Exhibitions at Physics and Astronomy Department, UCL.
It appeared on the official flyer for Nanoparticles 2009 conference, and is in the front cover of the Conference Proceedings.
It appeared on Front Cover of Nanoparticles theme issue published by the Royal Society Philosophical Transaction A in 2010 to celebrate the 350th Anniversary of the Royal Society.
It is also the symbol image of 2010 Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition "Nanoscale science: a giant leap for mankind".
Magnetic heart, Nguyen TK Thanh, 2004
This image is in front cover of the book MAGNETIC NANOPARTICLES: From Fabrication to Clinical Applications, Edited by Nguyen TK Thanh, CRC Press/Taylor and Francis, 2011