If you’re like me, you may be disappointed to learn that the world’s smallest snowman is, in fact, not made of snow at all. It’s tin that’s been etched with a focused ion beam (FIB) instrument, with bits of ion-welded platinum for the nose and to hold the tin spheres together. I guess it’s impractical to work with actual ice when you’re at the 10 micrometer scale. For comparison, a human hair is about 50 micrometers across. It’s the work of Dr. David Cox and co-workers at the National Physical Laboratory in London.
