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.

Mesmerizing videos offer a new look at the ways crystals form. The real-time clips, described March 30 in Nature Nanotechnology, show closeup views of microscopic gold particles tumbling, sliding and ...

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 ...

For the first time ever, researchers have watched the mesmerizing process of nanoparticles self-assembling into solid materials. In the stunning new videos, particles rain down, tumble along ...

Crystals don't always grow the way we thought. A team of researchers has just discovered a new type of crystal that shatters preconceived ideas about how they form. Scientists from New York University ...

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, ...

Scientists at TU Wien (Vienna) report that an exotic quantum phenomenon appears under conditions where it would not normally ...

More than 4 billion years ago, when the Solar System was still young and the Earth was still growing, a giant object the size of Mars crashed into the Earth. The biggest piece that broke off of the ...

More than 4 billion years ago, when the solar system was still young and the Earth was still growing, scientists think that a giant object the size of Mars crashed into the Earth. The biggest piece ...