Specific industrial techniques to produce large single crystals (called boules)

include the Czochralski process and the Bridgman technique. Other less exotic me
thods of crystallization may be used, depending on the physical properties of th
e substance, including hydrothermal synthesis, sublimation, or simply solvent-ba
sed crystallization.
Large single crystals can be created by geological processes. For example, selen
ite crystals in excess of 10 meters are found in the Cave of the Crystals in Nai
ca, Mexico.[7] For more details on geological crystal formation, see above.
Crystals can also be formed by biological processes, see above. Conversely, some
organisms have special techniques to prevent crystallization from occurring, su
ch as antifreeze proteins.
Defects, impurities, and twinning
Main articles: Crystallographic defect, Impurity, Crystal twinning and Mosaicity
Two types of crystallographic defects. Top right: edge dislocation. Bottom right
: screw dislocation.
An ideal crystal has every atom in a perfect, exactly repeating pattern. However
, in reality, most crystalline materials have a variety of crystallographic defe
cts, places where the crystal's pattern is interrupted. The types and structures
of these defects may have a profound effect on the properties of the materials.
A few examples of crystallographic defects include vacancy defects (an empty spa
ce where an atom should fit), interstitial defects (an extra atom squeezed in wh
ere it does not fit), and dislocations (see figure at right). Dislocations are e
specially important in materials science, because they help determine the mechan
ical strength of materials.
Another common type of crystallographic defect is an impurity, meaning that the
"wrong" type of atom is present in a crystal. For example, a perfect crystal of
diamond would only contain carbon atoms, but a real crystal might perhaps contai
n a few boron atoms as well. These boron impurities change the diamond's color t
o slightly blue. Likewise, the only difference between ruby and sapphire is the
type of impurities present in a corundum crystal.
Twinned pyrite crystal group.
In semiconductors, a special type of impurity, called a dopant, drastically chan
ges the crystal's electrical properties. Semiconductor devices, such as transist
ors, are made possible largely by putting different semiconductor dopants into d
ifferent places, in specific patterns.
Twinning is a phenomenon somewhere between a crystallographic defect and a grain
boundary. Like a grain boundary, a twin boundary has different crystal orientat
ions on its two sides. But unlike a grain boundary, the orientations are not ran
dom, but related in a specific, mirror-image way.
Mosaicity is a spread of crystal plane orientations. A mosaic crystal is suppose
d to consist of smaller crystalline units that are somewhat misaligned with resp
ect to each other.
Chemical bonds
In general, solids can be held together by various types of chemical bonds, such
as metallic bonds, ionic bonds, covalent bonds, van der Waals bonds, and others
. None of these are necessarily crystalline or non-crystalline. However, there a
re some general trends as follows.
Metals are almost always polycrystalline, though there are exceptions like amorp

hous metal and single-crystal metals. The latter are grown synthetically. (A mic
roscopically-small piece of metal may naturally form into a single crystal, but
larger pieces generally do not.) Ionically bonded solids are usually crystalline
or polycrystalline. In practice, large salt crystals can be created by solidifi
cation of a molten fluid, or by crystallization out of a solution. Covalently bo
nded crystals are also very common, notable examples being diamond, quartz, and
graphite. Polymer materials generally will form crystalline regions, but the len
gths of the molecules usually prevent complete crystallization and sometimes polym
ers are completely amorphous. Weak van der Waals forces also help hold together
certain crystals, including graphite.
Quasicrystals
The material Holmium Magnesium Zinc (Ho Mg Zn) forms quasicrystals, which can take on th
e macroscopic shape of a dodecahedron. (Only a quasicrystal, not a normal crysta
l, can take this shape.) The edges are 2 mm long.
Main article: Quasicrystal
A quasicrystal consists of arrays of atoms that are ordered but not strictly per
iodic. They have many attributes in common with ordinary crystals, such as displ
aying a discrete pattern in x-ray diffraction, and the ability to form shapes wi
th smooth, flat faces.
Quasicrystals are most famous for their ability to show five-fold symmetry, whic
h is impossible for an ordinary periodic crystal (see crystallographic restricti
on theorem).
The International Union of Crystallography has redefined the term "crystal" to i
nclude both ordinary periodic crystals and quasicrystals ("any solid having an e
ssentially discrete diffraction diagram"[8]).
Quasicrystals, first discovered in 1982, are quite rare in practice. Only about
100 solids are known to form quasicrystals, compared to about 400,000 periodic c
rystals measured to date.[9] The 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Da
n Shechtman for the discovery of quasicrystals.[10]
Special properties from anisotropy
See also: Crystal optics
Crystals can have certain special electrical, optical, and mechanical properties
that glass and polycrystals normally cannot. These properties are related to th
e anisotropy of the crystal, i.e. the lack of rotational symmetry in its atomic
arrangement. One such property is the piezoelectric effect, where a voltage acro
ss the crystal can shrink or stretch it. Another is birefringence, where a doubl
e image appears when looking through a crystal. Moreover, various properties of
a crystal, including electrical conductivity, electrical permittivity, and Young
's modulus, may be different in different directions in a crystal. For example,
graphite crystals consist of a stack of sheets, and although each individual she
et is mechanically very strong, the sheets are rather loosely bound to each othe
r. Therefore, the mechanical strength of the material is quite different dependi
ng on the direction of stress.
Not all crystals have all of these properties. Conversely, these properties are
not quite exclusive to crystals. They can appear in glasses or polycrystals that
have been made anisotropic by working or stress for example, stress-induced biref
ringence.
Crystallography
Main article: Crystallography
Crystallography is the science of measuring the crystal structure (in other word
s, the atomic arrangement) of a crystal. One widely used crystallography techniq
ue is X-ray diffraction. Large numbers of known crystal structures are stored in

crystallographic databases.
Gallery
Insulin crystals grown in earth orbit.
Hoar frost: A type of ice crystal (picture taken from a distance of about 5 cm).
Gallium, a metal that easily forms large crystals.
An apatite crystal sits front and center on cherry-red rhodochroite rhombs, purp
le fluorite cubes, quartz and a dusting of brass-yellow pyrite cubes.
Boules of silicon, like this one, are an important type of industrially-produced
single crystal.
A specimen consisting of a bornite-coated chalcopyrite crystal nestled in a bed
of clear quartz crystals and lustrous pyrite crystals. The bornite-coated crysta
l is up to 1.5 cm across.
See also
Atomic packing factor
Anticrystal
Cocrystal
Colloidal crystal
Crystal growth
Crystal oscillator
Liquid crystal
References
Jump up ^ ???sta????, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexico
n, on Perseus Digital Library
Jump up ^ ?????, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on
Perseus Digital Library
Jump up ^ "The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language". Kreus. 200
0.
Jump up ^ The surface science of metal oxides, by Victor E. Henrich, P. A. Cox,
page 28, google books link
Jump up ^ G. Cressey and I. F. Mercer, (1999) Crystals, London, Natural History
Museum, page 58
Jump up ^ Public Domain One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text
from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Petro
logy". Encyclopdia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Jump up ^ "Cave of Crystal Giants
National Geographic Magazine". nationalgeograp
hic.com.
Jump up ^ International Union of Crystallography (1992). "Report of the Executiv
e Committee for 1991". Acta Crystallogr. A 48 (6): 922. doi:10.1107/S01087673920
08328.
Jump up ^ Steurer W. (2004). "Twenty years of structure research on quasicrystal
s. Part I. Pentagonal, octagonal, decagonal and dodecagonal quasicrystals". Z. K
ristallogr. 219 (7 2004): 391 446. Bibcode:2004ZK....219..391S. doi:10.1524/zkri.219
.7.391.35643.
Jump up ^ "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2011". Nobelprize.org. Retrieved 2011-12
-29.
Further reading
Find more about
Crystal

at Wikipedia's sister projects

Search Wiktionary
Definitions from Wiktionary
Search Commons Media from Commons
Search Wikinews News stories from Wikinews
Search Wikiquote
Quotations from Wikiquote
Search Wikisource
Source texts from Wikisource
Search Wikibooks
Textbooks from Wikibooks
Search Wikiversity
Learning resources from WikiversitySpecific industrial t
echniques to produce large single crystals (called boules) include the Czochrals
ki process and the Bridgman technique. Other less exotic methods of crystallizat
ion may be used, depending on the physical properties of the substance, includin
g hydrothermal synthesis, sublimation, or simply solvent-based crystallization.
Large single crystals can be created by geological processes. For example, selen
ite crystals in excess of 10 meters are found in the Cave of the Crystals in Nai
ca, Mexico.[7] For more details on geological crystal formation, see above.
Crystals can also be formed by biological processes, see above. Conversely, some
organisms have special techniques to prevent crystallization from occurring, su
ch as antifreeze proteins.
Defects, impurities, and twinning
Main articles: Crystallographic defect, Impurity, Crystal twinning and Mosaicity
Two types of crystallographic defects. Top right: edge dislocation. Bottom right
: screw dislocation.
An ideal crystal has every atom in a perfect, exactly repeating pattern. However
, in reality, most crystalline materials have a variety of crystallographic defe
cts, places where the crystal's pattern is interrupted. The types and structures
of these defects may have a profound effect on the properties of the materials.
A few examples of crystallographic defects include vacancy defects (an empty spa
ce where an atom should fit), interstitial defects (an extra atom squeezed in wh
ere it does not fit), and dislocations (see figure at right). Dislocations are e
specially important in materials science, because they help determine the mechan
ical strength of materials.
Another common type of crystallographic defect is an impurity, meaning that the
"wrong" type of atom is present in a crystal. For example, a perfect crystal of
diamond would only contain carbon atoms, but a real crystal might perhaps contai
n a few boron atoms as well. These boron impurities change the diamond's color t
o slightly blue. Likewise, the only difference between ruby and sapphire is the
type of impurities present in a corundum crystal.
Twinned pyrite crystal group.
In semiconductors, a special type of impurity, called a dopant, drastically chan
ges the crystal's electrical properties. Semiconductor devices, such as transist
ors, are made possible largely by putting different semiconductor dopants into d
ifferent places, in specific patterns.
Twinning is a phenomenon somewhere between a crystallographic defect and a grain
boundary. Like a grain boundary, a twin boundary has different crystal orientat
ions on its two sides. But unlike a grain boundary, the orientations are not ran
dom, but related in a specific, mirror-image way.
Mosaicity is a spread of crystal plane orientations. A mosaic crystal is suppose
d to consist of smaller crystalline units that are somewhat misaligned with resp
ect to each other.

Chemical bonds
In general, solids can be held together by various types of chemical bonds, such
as metallic bonds, ionic bonds, covalent bonds, van der Waals bonds, and others
. None of these are necessarily crystalline or non-crystalline. However, there a
re some general trends as follows.
Metals are almost always polycrystalline, though there are exceptions like amorp
hous metal and single-crystal metals. The latter are grown synthetically. (A mic
roscopically-small piece of metal may naturally form into a single crystal, but
larger pieces generally do not.) Ionically bonded solids are usually crystalline
or polycrystalline. In practice, large salt crystals can be created by solidifi
cation of a molten fluid, or by crystallization out of a solution. Covalently bo
nded crystals are also very common, notable examples being diamond, quartz, and
graphite. Polymer materials generally will form crystalline regions, but the len
gths of the molecules usually prevent complete crystallization and sometimes polym
ers are completely amorphous. Weak van der Waals forces also help hold together
certain crystals, including graphite.
Quasicrystals
The material Holmium Magnesium Zinc (Ho Mg Zn) forms quasicrystals, which can take on th
e macroscopic shape of a dodecahedron. (Only a quasicrystal, not a normal crysta
l, can take this shape.) The edges are 2 mm long.
Main article: Quasicrystal
A quasicrystal consists of arrays of atoms that are ordered but not strictly per
iodic. They have many attributes in common with ordinary crystals, such as displ
aying a discrete pattern in x-ray diffraction, and the ability to form shapes wi
th smooth, flat faces.
Quasicrystals are most famous for their ability to show five-fold symmetry, whic
h is impossible for an ordinary periodic crystal (see crystallographic restricti
on theorem).
The International Union of Crystallography has redefined the term "crystal" to i
nclude both ordinary periodic crystals and quasicrystals ("any solid having an e
ssentially discrete diffraction diagram"[8]).
Quasicrystals, first discovered in 1982, are quite rare in practice. Only about
100 solids are known to form quasicrystals, compared to about 400,000 periodic c
rystals measured to date.[9] The 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Da
n Shechtman for the discovery of quasicrystals.[10]
Special properties from anisotropy
See also: Crystal optics
Crystals can have certain special electrical, optical, and mechanical properties
that glass and polycrystals normally cannot. These properties are related to th
e anisotropy of the crystal, i.e. the lack of rotational symmetry in its atomic
arrangement. One such property is the piezoelectric effect, where a voltage acro
ss the crystal can shrink or stretch it. Another is birefringence, where a doubl
e image appears when looking through a crystal. Moreover, various properties of
a crystal, including electrical conductivity, electrical permittivity, and Young
's modulus, may be different in different directions in a crystal. For example,
graphite crystals consist of a stack of sheets, and although each individual she
et is mechanically very strong, the sheets are rather loosely bound to each othe
r. Therefore, the mechanical strength of the material is quite different dependi
ng on the direction of stress.
Not all crystals have all of these properties. Conversely, these properties are
not quite exclusive to crystals. They can appear in glasses or polycrystals that
have been made anisotropic by working or stress for example, stress-induced biref

ringence.
Crystallography
Main article: Crystallography
Crystallography is the science of measuring the crystal structure (in other word
s, the atomic arrangement) of a crystal. One widely used crystallography techniq
ue is X-ray diffraction. Large numbers of known crystal structures are stored in
crystallographic databases.
Gallery
Insulin crystals grown in earth orbit.
Hoar frost: A type of ice crystal (picture taken from a distance of about 5 cm).
Gallium, a metal that easily forms large crystals.
An apatite crystal sits front and center on cherry-red rhodochroite rhombs, purp
le fluorite cubes, quartz and a dusting of brass-yellow pyrite cubes.
Boules of silicon, like this one, are an important type of industrially-produced
single crystal.
A specimen consisting of a bornite-coated chalcopyrite crystal nestled in a bed
of clear quartz crystals and lustrous pyrite crystals. The bornite-coated crysta
l is up to 1.5 cm across.
See also
Atomic packing factor
Anticrystal
Cocrystal
Colloidal crystal
Crystal growth
Crystal oscillator
Liquid crystal
References
Jump up ^ ???sta????, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexico
n, on Perseus Digital Library
Jump up ^ ?????, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on
Perseus Digital Library
Jump up ^ "The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language". Kreus. 200
0.
Jump up ^ The surface science of metal oxides, by Victor E. Henrich, P. A. Cox,
page 28, google books link
Jump up ^ G. Cressey and I. F. Mercer, (1999) Crystals, London, Natural History
Museum, page 58
Jump up ^ Public Domain One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text
from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Petro
logy". Encyclopdia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Jump up ^ "Cave of Crystal Giants
National Geographic Magazine". nationalgeograp
hic.com.
Jump up ^ International Union of Crystallography (1992). "Report of the Executiv
e Committee for 1991". Acta Crystallogr. A 48 (6): 922. doi:10.1107/S01087673920
08328.
Jump up ^ Steurer W. (2004). "Twenty years of structure research on quasicrystal
s. Part I. Pentagonal, octagonal, decagonal and dodecagonal quasicrystals". Z. K

ristallogr. 219 (7 2004): 391 446. Bibcode:2004ZK....219..391S. doi:10.1524/zkri.219

.7.391.35643.
Jump up ^ "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2011". Nobelprize.org. Retrieved 2011-12
-29.
Further reading
Find more about
Crystal
at Wikipedia's sister projects
Search Wiktionary
Definitions from Wiktionary
Search Commons Media from Commons
Search Wikinews News stories from Wikinews
Search Wikiquote
Quotations from Wikiquote
Search Wikisource
Source texts from Wikisource
Search Wikibooks
Textbooks from Wikibooks
Search Wikiversity
Learning resources from WikiversitySpecific industrial t
echniques to produce large single crystals (called boules) include the Czochrals
ki process and the Bridgman technique. Other less exotic methods of crystallizat
ion may be used, depending on the physical properties of the substance, includin
g hydrothermal synthesis, sublimation, or simply solvent-based crystallization.
Large single crystals can be created by geological processes. For example, selen
ite crystals in excess of 10 meters are found in the Cave of the Crystals in Nai
ca, Mexico.[7] For more details on geological crystal formation, see above.
Crystals can also be formed by biological processes, see above. Conversely, some
organisms have special techniques to prevent crystallization from occurring, su
ch as antifreeze proteins.
Defects, impurities, and twinning
Main articles: Crystallographic defect, Impurity, Crystal twinning and Mosaicity
Two types of crystallographic defects. Top right: edge dislocation. Bottom right
: screw dislocation.
An ideal crystal has every atom in a perfect, exactly repeating pattern. However
, in reality, most crystalline materials have a variety of crystallographic defe
cts, places where the crystal's pattern is interrupted. The types and structures
of these defects may have a profound effect on the properties of the materials.
A few examples of crystallographic defects include vacancy defects (an empty spa
ce where an atom should fit), interstitial defects (an extra atom squeezed in wh
ere it does not fit), and dislocations (see figure at right). Dislocations are e
specially important in materials science, because they help determine the mechan
ical strength of materials.
Another common type of crystallographic defect is an impurity, meaning that the
"wrong" type of atom is present in a crystal. For example, a perfect crystal of
diamond would only contain carbon atoms, but a real crystal might perhaps contai
n a few boron atoms as well. These boron impurities change the diamond's color t
o slightly blue. Likewise, the only difference between ruby and sapphire is the
type of impurities present in a corundum crystal.
Twinned pyrite crystal group.
In semiconductors, a special type of impurity, called a dopant, drastically chan
ges the crystal's electrical properties. Semiconductor devices, such as transist
ors, are made possible largely by putting different semiconductor dopants into d
ifferent places, in specific patterns.
Twinning is a phenomenon somewhere between a crystallographic defect and a grain
boundary. Like a grain boundary, a twin boundary has different crystal orientat

ions on its two sides. But unlike a grain boundary, the orientations are not ran
dom, but related in a specific, mirror-image way.
Mosaicity is a spread of crystal plane orientations. A mosaic crystal is suppose
d to consist of smaller crystalline units that are somewhat misaligned with resp
ect to each other.
Chemical bonds
In general, solids can be held together by various types of chemical bonds, such
as metallic bonds, ionic bonds, covalent bonds, van der Waals bonds, and others
. None of these are necessarily crystalline or non-crystalline. However, there a
re some general trends as follows.
Metals are almost always polycrystalline, though there are exceptions like amorp
hous metal and single-crystal metals. The latter are grown synthetically. (A mic
roscopically-small piece of metal may naturally form into a single crystal, but
larger pieces generally do not.) Ionically bonded solids are usually crystalline
or polycrystalline. In practice, large salt crystals can be created by solidifi
cation of a molten fluid, or by crystallization out of a solution. Covalently bo
nded crystals are also very common, notable examples being diamond, quartz, and
graphite. Polymer materials generally will form crystalline regions, but the len
gths of the molecules usually prevent complete crystallization and sometimes polym
ers are completely amorphous. Weak van der Waals forces also help hold together
certain crystals, including graphite.
Quasicrystals
The material Holmium Magnesium Zinc (Ho Mg Zn) forms quasicrystals, which can take on th
e macroscopic shape of a dodecahedron. (Only a quasicrystal, not a normal crysta
l, can take this shape.) The edges are 2 mm long.
Main article: Quasicrystal
A quasicrystal consists of arrays of atoms that are ordered but not strictly per
iodic. They have many attributes in common with ordinary crystals, such as displ
aying a discrete pattern in x-ray diffraction, and the ability to form shapes wi
th smooth, flat faces.
Quasicrystals are most famous for their ability to show five-fold symmetry, whic
h is impossible for an ordinary periodic crystal (see crystallographic restricti
on theorem).
The International Union of Crystallography has redefined the term "crystal" to i
nclude both ordinary periodic crystals and quasicrystals ("any solid having an e
ssentially discrete diffraction diagram"[8]).
Quasicrystals, first discovered in 1982, are quite rare in practice. Only about
100 solids are known to form quasicrystals, compared to about 400,000 periodic c
rystals measured to date.[9] The 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Da
n Shechtman for the discovery of quasicrystals.[10]
Special properties from anisotropy
See also: Crystal optics
Crystals can have certain special electrical, optical, and mechanical properties
that glass and polycrystals normally cannot. These properties are related to th
e anisotropy of the crystal, i.e. the lack of rotational symmetry in its atomic
arrangement. One such property is the piezoelectric effect, where a voltage acro
ss the crystal can shrink or stretch it. Another is birefringence, where a doubl
e image appears when looking through a crystal. Moreover, various properties of
a crystal, including electrical conductivity, electrical permittivity, and Young
's modulus, may be different in different directions in a crystal. For example,
graphite crystals consist of a stack of sheets, and although each individual she

et is mechanically very strong, the sheets are rather loosely bound to each othe
r. Therefore, the mechanical strength of the material is quite different dependi
ng on the direction of stress.
Not all crystals have all of these properties. Conversely, these properties are
not quite exclusive to crystals. They can appear in glasses or polycrystals that
have been made anisotropic by working or stress for example, stress-induced biref
ringence.
Crystallography
Main article: Crystallography
Crystallography is the science of measuring the crystal structure (in other word
s, the atomic arrangement) of a crystal. One widely used crystallography techniq
ue is X-ray diffraction. Large numbers of known crystal structures are stored in
crystallographic databases.
Gallery
Insulin crystals grown in earth orbit.
Hoar frost: A type of ice crystal (picture taken from a distance of about 5 cm).
Gallium, a metal that easily forms large crystals.
An apatite crystal sits front and center on cherry-red rhodochroite rhombs, purp
le fluorite cubes, quartz and a dusting of brass-yellow pyrite cubes.
Boules of silicon, like this one, are an important type of industrially-produced
single crystal.
A specimen consisting of a bornite-coated chalcopyrite crystal nestled in a bed
of clear quartz crystals and lustrous pyrite crystals. The bornite-coated crysta
l is up to 1.5 cm across.
See also
Atomic packing factor
Anticrystal
Cocrystal
Colloidal crystal
Crystal growth
Crystal oscillator
Liquid crystal
References
Jump up ^ ???sta????, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexico
n, on Perseus Digital Library
Jump up ^ ?????, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on
Perseus Digital Library
Jump up ^ "The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language". Kreus. 200
0.
Jump up ^ The surface science of metal oxides, by Victor E. Henrich, P. A. Cox,
page 28, google books link
Jump up ^ G. Cressey and I. F. Mercer, (1999) Crystals, London, Natural History
Museum, page 58
Jump up ^ Public Domain One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text
from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Petro
logy". Encyclopdia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Jump up ^ "Cave of Crystal Giants

National Geographic Magazine". nationalgeograp
hic.com.
Jump up ^ International Union of Crystallography (1992). "Report of the Executiv
e Committee for 1991". Acta Crystallogr. A 48 (6): 922. doi:10.1107/S01087673920
08328.
Jump up ^ Steurer W. (2004). "Twenty years of structure research on quasicrystal
s. Part I. Pentagonal, octagonal, decagonal and dodecagonal quasicrystals". Z. K
ristallogr. 219 (7 2004): 391 446. Bibcode:2004ZK....219..391S. doi:10.1524/zkri.219
.7.391.35643.
Jump up ^ "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2011". Nobelprize.org. Retrieved 2011-12
-29.
Further reading
Find more about
Crystal
at Wikipedia's sister projects
Search Wiktionary
Definitions from Wiktionary
Search Commons Media from Commons
Search Wikinews News stories from Wikinews
Search Wikiquote
Quotations from Wikiquote
Search Wikisource
Source texts from Wikisource
Search Wikibooks
Textbooks from Wikibooks
Search Wikiversity
Learning resources from WikiversitySpecific industrial t
echniques to produce large single crystals (called boules) include the Czochrals
ki process and the Bridgman technique. Other less exotic methods of crystallizat
ion may be used, depending on the physical properties of the substance, includin
g hydrothermal synthesis, sublimation, or simply solvent-based crystallization.
Large single crystals can be created by geological processes. For example, selen
ite crystals in excess of 10 meters are found in the Cave of the Crystals in Nai
ca, Mexico.[7] For more details on geological crystal formation, see above.
Crystals can also be formed by biological processes, see above. Conversely, some
organisms have special techniques to prevent crystallization from occurring, su
ch as antifreeze proteins.
Defects, impurities, and twinning
Main articles: Crystallographic defect, Impurity, Crystal twinning and Mosaicity
Two types of crystallographic defects. Top right: edge dislocation. Bottom right
: screw dislocation.
An ideal crystal has every atom in a perfect, exactly repeating pattern. However
, in reality, most crystalline materials have a variety of crystallographic defe
cts, places where the crystal's pattern is interrupted. The types and structures
of these defects may have a profound effect on the properties of the materials.
A few examples of crystallographic defects include vacancy defects (an empty spa
ce where an atom should fit), interstitial defects (an extra atom squeezed in wh
ere it does not fit), and dislocations (see figure at right). Dislocations are e
specially important in materials science, because they help determine the mechan
ical strength of materials.
Another common type of crystallographic defect is an impurity, meaning that the
"wrong" type of atom is present in a crystal. For example, a perfect crystal of
diamond would only contain carbon atoms, but a real crystal might perhaps contai
n a few boron atoms as well. These boron impurities change the diamond's color t
o slightly blue. Likewise, the only difference between ruby and sapphire is the
type of impurities present in a corundum crystal.
Twinned pyrite crystal group.

In semiconductors, a special type of impurity, called a dopant, drastically chan

ges the crystal's electrical properties. Semiconductor devices, such as transist
ors, are made possible largely by putting different semiconductor dopants into d
ifferent places, in specific patterns.
Twinning is a phenomenon somewhere between a crystallographic defect and a grain
boundary. Like a grain boundary, a twin boundary has different crystal orientat
ions on its two sides. But unlike a grain boundary, the orientations are not ran
dom, but related in a specific, mirror-image way.
Mosaicity is a spread of crystal plane orientations. A mosaic crystal is suppose
d to consist of smaller crystalline units that are somewhat misaligned with resp
ect to each other.
Chemical bonds
In general, solids can be held together by various types of chemical bonds, such
as metallic bonds, ionic bonds, covalent bonds, van der Waals bonds, and others
. None of these are necessarily crystalline or non-crystalline. However, there a
re some general trends as follows.
Metals are almost always polycrystalline, though there are exceptions like amorp
hous metal and single-crystal metals. The latter are grown synthetically. (A mic
roscopically-small piece of metal may naturally form into a single crystal, but
larger pieces generally do not.) Ionically bonded solids are usually crystalline
or polycrystalline. In practice, large salt crystals can be created by solidifi
cation of a molten fluid, or by crystallization out of a solution. Covalently bo
nded crystals are also very common, notable examples being diamond, quartz, and
graphite. Polymer materials generally will form crystalline regions, but the len
gths of the molecules usually prevent complete crystallization and sometimes polym
ers are completely amorphous. Weak van der Waals forces also help hold together
certain crystals, including graphite.
Quasicrystals
The material Holmium Magnesium Zinc (Ho Mg Zn) forms quasicrystals, which can take on th
e macroscopic shape of a dodecahedron. (Only a quasicrystal, not a normal crysta
l, can take this shape.) The edges are 2 mm long.
Main article: Quasicrystal
A quasicrystal consists of arrays of atoms that are ordered but not strictly per
iodic. They have many attributes in common with ordinary crystals, such as displ
aying a discrete pattern in x-ray diffraction, and the ability to form shapes wi
th smooth, flat faces.
Quasicrystals are most famous for their ability to show five-fold symmetry, whic
h is impossible for an ordinary periodic crystal (see crystallographic restricti
on theorem).
The International Union of Crystallography has redefined the term "crystal" to i
nclude both ordinary periodic crystals and quasicrystals ("any solid having an e
ssentially discrete diffraction diagram"[8]).
Quasicrystals, first discovered in 1982, are quite rare in practice. Only about
100 solids are known to form quasicrystals, compared to about 400,000 periodic c
rystals measured to date.[9] The 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Da
n Shechtman for the discovery of quasicrystals.[10]
Special properties from anisotropy
See also: Crystal optics
Crystals can have certain special electrical, optical, and mechanical properties
that glass and polycrystals normally cannot. These properties are related to th

e anisotropy of the crystal, i.e. the lack of rotational symmetry in its atomic
arrangement. One such property is the piezoelectric effect, where a voltage acro
ss the crystal can shrink or stretch it. Another is birefringence, where a doubl
e image appears when looking through a crystal. Moreover, various properties of
a crystal, including electrical conductivity, electrical permittivity, and Young
's modulus, may be different in different directions in a crystal. For example,
graphite crystals consist of a stack of sheets, and although each individual she
et is mechanically very strong, the sheets are rather loosely bound to each othe
r. Therefore, the mechanical strength of the material is quite different dependi
ng on the direction of stress.
Not all crystals have all of these properties. Conversely, these properties are
not quite exclusive to crystals. They can appear in glasses or polycrystals that
have been made anisotropic by working or stress for example, stress-induced biref
ringence.
Crystallography
Main article: Crystallography
Crystallography is the science of measuring the crystal structure (in other word
s, the atomic arrangement) of a crystal. One widely used crystallography techniq
ue is X-ray diffraction. Large numbers of known crystal structures are stored in
crystallographic databases.
Gallery
Insulin crystals grown in earth orbit.
Hoar frost: A type of ice crystal (picture taken from a distance of about 5 cm).
Gallium, a metal that easily forms large crystals.
An apatite crystal sits front and center on cherry-red rhodochroite rhombs, purp
le fluorite cubes, quartz and a dusting of brass-yellow pyrite cubes.
Boules of silicon, like this one, are an important type of industrially-produced
single crystal.
A specimen consisting of a bornite-coated chalcopyrite crystal nestled in a bed
of clear quartz crystals and lustrous pyrite crystals. The bornite-coated crysta
l is up to 1.5 cm across.
See also
Atomic packing factor
Anticrystal
Cocrystal
Colloidal crystal
Crystal growth
Crystal oscillator
Liquid crystal
References
Jump up ^ ???sta????, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexico
n, on Perseus Digital Library
Jump up ^ ?????, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on
Perseus Digital Library
Jump up ^ "The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language". Kreus. 200
0.

Jump up ^ The surface science of metal oxides, by Victor E. Henrich, P. A. Cox,

page 28, google books link
Jump up ^ G. Cressey and I. F. Mercer, (1999) Crystals, London, Natural History
Museum, page 58
Jump up ^ Public Domain One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text
from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Petro
logy". Encyclopdia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Jump up ^ "Cave of Crystal Giants
National Geographic Magazine". nationalgeograp
hic.com.
Jump up ^ International Union of Crystallography (1992). "Report of the Executiv
e Committee for 1991". Acta Crystallogr. A 48 (6): 922. doi:10.1107/S01087673920
08328.
Jump up ^ Steurer W. (2004). "Twenty years of structure research on quasicrystal
s. Part I. Pentagonal, octagonal, decagonal and dodecagonal quasicrystals". Z. K
ristallogr. 219 (7 2004): 391 446. Bibcode:2004ZK....219..391S. doi:10.1524/zkri.219
.7.391.35643.
Jump up ^ "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2011". Nobelprize.org. Retrieved 2011-12
-29.
Further reading
Find more about
Crystal
at Wikipedia's sister projects
Search Wiktionary
Definitions from Wiktionary
Search Commons Media from Commons
Search Wikinews News stories from Wikinews
Search Wikiquote
Quotations from Wikiquote
Search Wikisource
Source texts from Wikisource
Search Wikibooks
Textbooks from Wikibooks
Search Wikiversity
Learning resources from Wikiversity