Cross-Sectioning Crickets with a Femtosecond Laser

Hackaday reports on a project that combines femtosecond lasers—ultra-short, intense light bursts that ablate material without heating surroundings—with electron microscopy to image cricket cross-sections in extraordinary detail. The process required careful sample preparation: protein cross-linking, solvent exchanges to prevent surface-tension damage, and charring under argon to make the bodies conductive. After debugging a mysterious issue where a painted shutter was creating a capacitor that disrupted imaging, the laser gradually cut through the cricket specimens thirty microns at a time, revealing internal structures.

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