Regarding Home Lab made to study crystallography

[John Lutz]

1) Is it possible to create crystals at home beyond child crystal kits one can buy? I'm very serious
about putting work into studying and growing crystals. If so, what do I need?

2) Also how would it be possible to introduce vacancies in crystal growth ? I have heard of
things like ionic bombardment. I'm looking to build a lattice with regular periodicity and direction.

 

[russ_watters]

What kind of crystals do you want to grow?

 

[John Lutz]

What kind of crystals do you want to grow?

Right off the top of my head: Quartz. Or anything stronger and more resilient than the molecular variety.

 

[Tom.G]

You might find of interest this rather extensive page on SiO₂ (Quartz) at:
http://www.quartzpage.de/gen_chem.html.

 

[Stephenk53]

It's fairly elementary aside from inhalation dangers (not much but still exists), but you could use lead acetate to create lead crystals, it requires very little effort and knowledge though

 

[John Lutz]

It's fairly elementary aside from inhalation dangers (not much but still exists), but you could use lead acetate to create lead crystals, it requires very little effort and knowledge though

Interesting! I wouldn't need certain heat, time or pressure requirements to create quartz crystals?

 

[anorlunda]

YouTube is a rich source of DIY information. I tried some simple arches on YouTube for "growing crystals". I found numerous hits including Lead, borax, and quartz.

 

[ZapperZ]

So once you have created this, how are you going to know that you have created what you think you should?

In proper professional endeavor, we try to verify everything that we make, so there is often a series of diagnostic techniques and equipment to test properties of such material. How do you proposed to know that you have actually made a "quartz crystal" and not just a lump of glass?

Zz.