صورة:Gallium1 640x480.jpg

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Crystals of 99.999% gallium, grown and photographed by myself in February 2003. These particular crystals took about 45 minutes to grow, sitting in a plastic dish near a cool window.

The lumpiness on the surface of these crystals is caused mainly by me shifting the dish around to monitor the progression of the crystal growth. Crystals (of any material) need to be totally undisturbed in order to grow perfect, large, smooth facets. Each time I moved the liquid around, it interrupted the crystal growth. The "lumps" are actually tiny crystals that started growing on the larger facets, but got smoothed over due to the liquid motion.

If I had placed this in a vibration-damped sandbox (similar to a holography table) and not disturbed it, the crystals would have been even larger, more coherent, and more stunning ;)

1024x768 PNG (makes a nice desktop wallpaper)

from: en:user:foobar

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