Abstract
IT is now generally accepted that the polish layer on metals is amorphous. The observations which led Beilby to formulate his famous conception of the vitreous nature of this layer were not, however, confined to metals, but had also been made with non-conducting crystals such as quartz, fluorspar, calcite and others. But Hopkins1, working in G. P. Thomson's laboratory, has shown that the polish layer on Iceland spar cleavage faces is crystalline; and Raether's2 electron diffraction patterns from polished natural faces of rocksalt, fluorite, calcite and pyrites are also wholly characteristic of crystalline structure. Nevertheless, the directness and simplicity of his experiments, in particular the exposure by etching of scratches eliminated by polishing, seem to speak convincingly in favour of Beilby's views.
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Hopkins, Phil Mag., 21, 820 (1936).
Raether, Z. Phys., 86, 82 (1933).
Germer, Phys. Rev., 49, 163 (1936), also obtained a halo pattern from carborundum and concluded that this vitiated the usual interpretation of the haloes obtained from polished surfaces; had he, however, removed the glassy film due to surface oxidation, a single crystal pattern would certainly have been obtained.
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FINCH, G. The Beilby Layer on Non-Metals. Nature 138, 1010 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/1381010a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1381010a0
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