Within a crystal's atomic structure, tiny atomic-scale flaws will naturally occur where electrons can become trapped. These defects have emerged as one of the leading platforms for quantum information ...

Scientists in the US have rewritten the rules of materials discovery after creating a new revolutionary way to develop superconductors, by swapping elements inside a crystal. The team from Argonne ...

Florida State University scientists have engineered a new crystal that forces atomic magnets to swirl into complex, repeating patterns. The effect comes from mixing two nearly identical compounds ...

Duplicates of crystal structures are flooding databases, implicating repositories hosting organic, inorganic, and computer-generated crystals. The issue raises questions about curation practices at ...

Imagine a clock that doesn’t have electricity, but its hands and gears spin on their own for all eternity. In a new study, physicists at CU Boulder have used liquid crystals, the same materials that ...

The brilliantly shiny diamond is more than just pretty; it's one of the hardest minerals on Earth, with a name derived from the Greek word adámas, meaning unbreakable. Scientists have now engineered a ...

Instead of always forming building block by building block, scientists are learning that crystals can grow through more complex pathways. Credit: Shihao Zang/NYU Meet “Zangenite,” a hollow crystal ...

From the delicate patterns of snowflakes to the robust structure of diamonds, crystals are all around us. For a long time, scientists believed their growth followed a predictable path. But now, ...

If you’ve recently been passed down a family member’s glassware collection, you might be curious about some of the pieces with intricate designs. Grandma might have called her catalog her crystal, but ...

Unlocking the secrets of crystal structures is a crucial step in predicting the properties and applications of materials from their chemical compositions. Unfortunately, most current methods for ...