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Materials science

How crystals get an edge

Nature volume 531, pages 308–309 (2016)Cite this article

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Microscopy reveals how nanowires of a widely used semiconductor grow during preparation. The findings will allow the crystal phases of such nanowires to be engineered — a crucial advance for materials science. See Article p.317

The twinkling facets of single crystals in mineral collections have inspired breathtaking artwork and magnificent buildings, such as the Sagrada Família in the Catalan city of Barcelona, Spain. Yet our understanding of the nucleation (the formation of tiny crystal seeds at the start of crystallization) and growth of even the smallest filamentary crystals, including nanowires, is fragmentary. This slows the implementation of nanowire-based technology in many areas of science, including electronics, photonics and quantum information. On page 317 of this issue, Jacobsson and colleagues1 show how to control the crystal form adopted by nanowires at nucleation, thereby allowing the structure to be tailored for particular functions, and solving one of the most fundamental challenges in materials science and engineering.

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Figure 1: Nanowire growth.

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  1. Anna Fontcuberta i Morral is in the Laboratory of Semiconductor Materials, Institute of Materials, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne 1015, Switzerland.,

    Anna Fontcuberta i Morral

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  1. Anna Fontcuberta i Morral
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Correspondence to Anna Fontcuberta i Morral.

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Fontcuberta i Morral, A. How crystals get an edge. Nature 531, 308–309 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/531308a

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