Let’s 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
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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.
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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
2. ice in icicles or on a pond – formed from
water

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1. Snowflakes and frost
 are very
irregular,
 have many
points or
edges,
 have lots of
space inside
them.

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2.
Ice in icicles

Ice on a pond
It is transparent with
very flat surfaces
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Water from the tap
and water from melted ice

 Which is
which?
 Liquids do
not
remember.
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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.

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1
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Snowflakes grow from vapour
 We have air with very
few water molecules in it.
Molecule
– a new word?
Cold A molecule of
surface
water is the
tiniest particle
 When the water molecule of water that
hits a cold surface it will can exist and
still be water.
stick just where it lands

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 A computer can show this

 We use a simulation from Hong Kong

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

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

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Growing a snowflake

 100 molecules

11 000 molecules 13
2
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Ice from a puddle

 Why is
it
perfectly
flat?

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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

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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.

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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.
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What is the arrangement of
atoms?
 Each atom wants to be close to other
atoms.

 What pattern do we get?

We see lines  crystals !

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More atoms
 Can you
see a
pattern?

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Lines

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More lines

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- in 3 directions

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Bubble rafts show this-

We will make some soon.

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How to make a bubble raft
Add one spoonful
of detergent very
Bowl carefully
of - stir gently.
water 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.
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A bubble raft is a ‘solid’ layer
on the surface of the
water.

A bubble
raft grown
quickly.

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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.
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A bubble raft grown very slowly

 Canyou
see the
rows?

University of Cambridge
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The bubbles are in rows

 In 3
directions

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Who are the experts at
creating this order?

 Bees
 honeycomb
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 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!
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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

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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.

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