Imaging Crystallization

Abstract

Real-time atomic force microscopy provides insights into complex processes associated with crystal growth. [Also see Report by Lupulescu and Rimer ]

Lie, Santilli, and nanotechnology: From the elementary particles to the periodic table of the elements

“…Nanotechnology is rapidly coming down in scale and has now reached the atomic level, 19,20 all the way encountering hierarchically self-similar crystallographic lattice structures; usually, and in the inorganic realm almost exclusively of a regular solid composition identical to the present isotropic vector matrix generated via Marius Sophus Lie's original continuous geometriske transformationer. 2,3 Thereby, Nanotechnology has carried to the very infinitesimal realm its rational Renaissance of un-dogmatic objective Natural History observation and operation whose deepest domain and idea can be summarized as extension: in the Aristotelian sense revived in Western science by Descartes and Lie alike.…”

“…Hence, the duplicated Bohr orbital model stratification of the periodic table is generated by the portioned delivery via a gradually narrowing condensation corridor from the virtual nozzle of which the pairwise dismantled Hydrogen ion seeds are deposited in a cross-sectional truss pattern and then expand within each so formed cell in a mode closely matching the "spiral…2D layer growth" 19,20 recently documented to operate at scales immediately bordering to the infinitesimal level and thus reasonably originating there. The scheme may seem far-fetched but is in effect quite akin to and not more complicated than the snowball packing by like inter-particle compression mechanism of repelling nucleons into a central nucleus, and instead of a reverse dispersal of bodiless electrons far out in the periphery integrates them in the process.…”

“…7b) and there cyclically uncoiling under shedding off of photons and neutrinos and other fragments until in the ultimate end pairwise sandwiching up along the sides as a wafer of together equally many singlets as the cloud's amount. Maybe not so crystal-clear formulated -but clear for re-crystallization by the formation of so individualized Hydrogen ion seeds by cross-sectional extrusion in an alternating sequence from the here vertically duplicated Bohr-periodic singlet "terraces" 19,20 (Fig. 8a).…”

“…In the kick-off primordial Universe the serpentine route to the Hydrogen atom that together with some Helium prevails there reminds of the "3D island growth…pathway of layered growth" recently described at "angstrom-scale [and even single-atom scale] resolution" 19,20 in surface crystallization processes, where "the growth units are individual molecules and ions that attach in monomolecular steps present on a crystal surface" (Ib.). That the same modus operandi with identical topographical "step heights, terrace widths, and other surface features" (Ib.)…”

A design aid for crystal growth engineering

“…At a sufficiently high supersaturation an F face can also transition to a rough growth regime [12,77]; these regimes are illustrated in Figure 3.3 and the progression between regimes is shown in Figure 3.4. Spiral and 2D nucleation & growth mechanisms can be readily identified upon imaging the surface structure of grown crystals [78,79] and transitions between regimes have also been observed experimentally for various systems, notably through the use of in-situ atomic force microscopy (AFM) [80,81]. The driving force for crystallization is a chemical potential difference between the solute in its growth environment and in the crystalline lattice.…”