Lets grow a solid

How solids grow

Put your own name here!

What is special about a solid?

It keeps its shape.

A man-made object

A natural
object

Liquids

Have no shape
so atoms can move round freely.

When solids get hot they melt

to form a liquid

- like chocolate
on a hot day.

Solids remember
how they grew !

We look at 2 ways that solids grow.

and the types of solid formed.

Water can form:

1.

frost and snowflakes formed out of the air

ice in icicles or on a pond formed from
water

2.

1. Snowflakes and frost

are very
irregular,
have many
points or
edges,
have lots of
space inside
them.
5

2.

Ice in icicles

Ice on a pond

It is transparent with
very flat surfaces
6

Water from the tap

and water from melted ice
Which is
which?
Liquids do
not
remember.

How do solids grow?

Why is it interesting
and useful to know?

We make modern devices by growing

a solid atom-by-atom
to

give us the form that we want.

1
9

Snowflakes grow from vapour

We have air with very

few water molecules in it.

Cold
surface

When the water molecule

hits a cold surface it will
stick just where it lands

Molecule
a new word?
A molecule of
water is the
tiniest particle
of water that
can exist and
still be water.
10

A computer can show this

We use a simulation from Hong Kong

http://apricot.polyu.edu.hk/~lam/dla/dla.html

11

http://apricot.ap.polyu.edu.hk/dla/dla.html

12

Growing a snowflake

100 molecules

11 000 molecules

13

2
14

Ice from a puddle

Why is
it
perfectly
flat?
15

Crystals

When solids grow

the atoms add on
row by row to
form a layer.
Then another
layer grows on
top.
Then another -

A tiny natural crystal in a stone

16

How many layers of atoms in

this chunk of quartz crystal?
One layer is
very, very
thin.
About 10000
layers make
the thickness
of paper.
The crystal
has about 100
million layers
of atoms!
How big can a crystal grow? See
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8466493.stm

17

Growing a solid from liquid or a

solution

An atom will join the solid only if

the conditions are exactly right.

If the solid is near to its melting

point the atoms can move around so
as to get a more perfect pattern.

We call this annealing.

18

Growing a solid atom by

atom

Send a beam of
atoms through a
vacuum and on to
a flat surface.

Keep the surface hot so that the atoms

can move around and find the best place
to settle.

19

What is the arrangement of

atoms?

Each atom wants to be close to other

atoms.

What pattern do we get?

We

see lines

crystals !

20

More atoms

Can you
see a
pattern?

21

Lines

22

More lines

23

- in 3 directions

24

Bubble rafts show thisWe will make some soon.

25

How to make a bubble raft

Bowl
of
water

Add one spoonful

of detergent very
carefully
- stir gently.
Put in the yoghurt
pot - you will get
a stream of
bubbles.

The yoghurt pot is below the water surface and

above the bottom of the bowl.
Move your hand slowly from side to
side to spread the bubbles.
26

A bubble raft is a solid layer

water.

on the surface of the

A bubble
raft grown
quickly.

27

What do we see ?

The bubbles attract each other.

They all move a little so that a new bubble

goes in the best place.

The bubbles are attracted to the edge of

the container and to your fingers!

If a bubble bursts or the raft is disturbed

it will repair itself
this is called annealing.

28

A bubble raft grown very slowly

Can

you
see the
rows?

University of Cambridge

29

The bubbles are in rows

In 3
directions

30

Who are the experts at

creating this order?

Bees

honeycomb
31

What else do we learn ?

Bubbles are
made from air
and soapy water

BUT

They do not look

like air, or water.

They do not
behave like air,
or water.

A foam dance!

32

What is special about bubbles?

The soap films are very thin.

A thin film of water is very different from

water in a bucket or glass.

We have a very thin sandwich

air- water air

33

Now back to solids

All crystalline solids have atoms in
layers like lots of bubble rafts.
We can grow crystals from a
solution of salt in water.

Special sandwich crystals can be

grown, which have different atoms
in different layers.
34

Sandwich crystals can now be

grown layer by layer

MBE (Molecular Beam Epitaxy)

1 layer per second
2,000,000 seconds for 1 mm

= 23 days for 1 mm
These special crystals are used
in LEDs
and-----

35

You use manufactured crystals

in Computer
chips

Chips are in:

mobile phones
games consoles

laptops
MP3 players-36

What have we learned ?

A solid remembers the way it is formed.
A solid formed from vapour may be like a
snowflake.
We get perfect solids from liquids and if the
solid is free to readjust, anneal.
We grew a bubble raft on water and watched
it anneal.
We saw that soap bubbles look very different
from water and air and behave differently too!
We learned that modern devices depend on atomic
layer sandwiches.
37

Scientists do
amazing things!
There is lots to find out!
Keep asking questions!