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.

A crystals expert has published an answer to how crystals are formed and how molecules become a part of them, solving an age-old mystery about crystal formation. A million years ago, the oldest known ...

In exploring how crystals form, the researchers also came across an unusual, rod-shaped crystal that hadn’t been identified before, naming it “Zangenite” for the NYU graduate student who discovered it ...

Researchers have successfully grown platinum crystals in liquid metal, using a powerful X-ray technique giving rare insight ...

The growth of crystals inside liquid metal is not a new idea. However, because people could not see inside the liquid metal, ...

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 ...

Starfish embryos sprout appendages very early on in development, and the embryos can spin through water by moving those appendages. Researchers have now found that when a bunch of starfish embryos are ...

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 ...

Peter Vekilov, University of Houston Frank Worley Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, has published that incorporation of molecules into crystals occurs in two steps, divided by an ...