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Crystallization tracked atom by atom

Atoms of a metal alloy have been tracked as they form crystal nuclei — the first ordered clusters of atoms or molecules produced during crystallization. The findings might help to develop a general nucleation theory.
  1. Peter G. Vekilov

    1. Peter G. Vekilov is in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and the Department of Chemistry, University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77204, USA.

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Nucleation is the earliest stage of crystallization, in which atoms or molecules dispersed in a crystallization medium first come together to form ordered clusters known as nuclei. Crystal nucleation underpins a vast range of phenomena, from the solidification of rocks from molten magma to the hardening of biological tissues through the formation of various minerals, and the protein fibrillation and crystallization associated with a plethora of diseases. In many instances, nucleus formation represents the rate-limiting stage of crystallization and determines the main properties of a crystal population, including the type, number and size distribution of the crystals that form. In a paper in Nature, Zhou et al.1 report features of crystal nucleation that not only clash with several assumptions of classical nucleation theory, but also go beyond more recent non-classical models.

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Nature 570, 450-452 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-01965-2

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