Abstract
THE problem of preparing a piece of metal in the -"- form of a single crystal may be approached in one of two ways. As ordinarily prepared, metals and alloys consist of a large number of small crystals the size of which varies in the great majority of cases from about 100,000 to several million in a cubic inch. These result from the fact that when the metal or alloy freezes, crystallisation takes place at a large number of centres and the crystals grow until they meet one another. The boundaries, therefore, are produced by the meeting of these crystals and vary very much in shape. The net result is rather similar to that of a jig-saw puzzle, for the crystals are oriented quite at haphazard. The shapes and sizes of these crystals may be altered by working and heat-treatment, and the precise rearrangement may go so far as to result in the birth of new crystals, but the net result is always an aggregate of comparatively small crystals.
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CARPENTER, H. The Production of Single Crystals of Metals and some of their Properties. Nature 118, 266–269 (1926). https://doi.org/10.1038/118266a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/118266a0
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