Scientifically speaking, the term “crystal” refers to any solid that has an ordered chemical structure. This means that its parts are arranged in a precisely ordered pattern, like bricks in a wall.

You might have seen sped-up videos of how some crystals form. Maybe you did the famous experiment of putting a metal ring in a solution rich in salt, and saw little crystals forming on it. Water is a ...

From the delicate patterns of snowflakes to the robust structure of diamonds, crystals are all around us. For a long time, scientists believed their growth followed a predictable path. But now, ...

In exploring how crystals form, the researchers also came across an unusual, rod-shaped crystal that hadn’t been identified before, naming it “Zangenite” for the NYU graduate student who discovered it ...

Crystals might look simple, but their growth tells a far more complex and fascinating story. From grains of salt to diamonds, crystals form when particles lock into repeating patterns. For many years, ...

If you dissolve sugar in hot water and then cool it down, you'll see pure sugar crystals form while impurities stay in the liquid. You can even watch the beautiful sugar crystals slowly grow in the ...

Crystal engineering harnesses the principles of supramolecular chemistry to design and synthesise novel crystalline architectures with tailored properties. By exploiting specific intermolecular ...

The liquid crystals used in displays nowadays are usually in a nematic phase, i.e. a liquid-like state of almost parallel oriented molecules. However, there is another liquid crystal phase which has a ...

Crystal structure prediction is, after years of hard work by many, many groups, finally reaching the point where it’s going ...

Crystals—from sugar and table salt to snowflakes and diamonds—don’t always grow in a straightforward way. New York University researchers have captured this journey from amorphous blob to orderly ...