Phys.org February 8, 2023 Single crystalline materials have the potential to exhibit superior performance because they exclude grain boundaries, which increase susceptibility to creep, oxidation, and corrosion, and make thermal and electronic transport inefficient. However, single crystal properties vary significantly with crystallographic orientation, making the ability to control the orientation critical for their use in applications. The complex nature of crystal nucleation and growth processes makes such control challenging. A team of researchers in the US (Texas A&M University, University of Virginia, Argonne National Laboratory) has developed a new crystal reorientation mechanism that results in abrupt and massive orientation changes […]
Tag Archives: Crystallography
Team creates crystals that generate electricity from heat
Phys.org November 6, 2022 An international team of researchers (France, Japan, Germany) synthesized a series of self-doped compounds Cu2+xMn1−xGeS4 through Cu for Mn substitution. Using a combination of powder X-ray diffraction, high resolution transmission electron microscopy and precession-assisted electron diffraction tomography, they showed that the materials were composed of interconnected enargite- and stannite-type structures, via the formation of nanodomains with a high density of coherent interfaces. By combining experiments with ab initio electron and phonon calculations, they discussed the structure–thermoelectric properties relationships and clarified the interesting crystal chemistry in this system. They demonstrated that excess Cu+ substituted for Mn2+ dopes […]