Crystallisation work highlighed in the scientific journal Nature and ScienceNOW
Friday 27 November 2009
Recent work by PhD student Amanda Page and her supervisor Richard Sear has been highlighted in both Nature (subscription required) and ScienceNOW.
It has been known for centuries that if a surface is scratched, crystals form along the scratch. However, people have not been able to see the crystal start to form in a scratch because they are then around a billionth of a metre across and so too small to be seen. Amanda Page was able to use modern computer algorithms to simulate the start of crystallisation in a groove and she found that crystals indeed formed very rapidly in grooves. She also found that crystallisation was fastest when the angle of the groove was just right. Like Goldilocks who was very particular about how hot her porridge was, crystals are very particular about the angle of the groove. This is very different from liquids which are much less particular. The finding that crystals are so particular may be useful for getting molecules such as pharmaceuticals to form the "right" crystal form. Many pharmaceuticals can form many different types of crystals and it is often necessary to control which one forms.
A crystal (molecules shown as yellow spheres) forming in a groove (sides shown as black lines) with angle β. There is a thin layer of liquid on the surface of the crystal (shown as blue molecules). Work done by Amanda Page and Richard Sear.