Frill

O.K., that was a mouth full. The ESEM is a handy gadget, basically just a SEM with a climate controlled chamber for your sample. The images below were taken when Ken Severin and I were testing the low temperature setting on the chamber. At about -85ºC minute amounts of water vapor crystallized in the chamber, and these beautiful, little, hexagonal ice prisms formed. At some point we began playing with the pressure in the chamber, which caused some sublimation, producing the little "warts" to form on the crystals.