The Crystal Chamber

The glowing crystals cover your entire world clear from one horizon to the other, encompassing you in an endless array of emanating smooth surfaces that seem to sing right at you like a living being. The constant call from within this cavern causes your bones to buzz and your eyes to drift away into some hypnotic trance that both accelerates your mind and expands you into tranquility at the same time. You cannot explain it, but just as you are about to drift away you see your hand turning into a glowing hunk of singing blue crystal. A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituent atoms, molecules, or ions are arranged in an orderly repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions. The scientific study of crystals and crystal formation is known as crystallography. Crystalline structures occur in all classes of materials, with all types of chemical bonds. Almost all metal exists in a polycrystalline state; amorphous or single-crystal metals must be produced synthetically, often with great difficulty. Ionically bonded crystals can form upon solidification of salts, either from a molten fluid or upon crystallization from a solution. Covalently bonded crystals are also very common, notable examples being diamond, silica, and graphite. Polymer materials generally will form crystalline regions, but the lengths of the molecules usually prevent complete crystallization. Weak van der Waals forces can also play a role in a crystal structure; for example, this type of bonding loosely holds together the hexagonal-patterned sheets in graphite. Most crystalline materials have a variety of crystallographic defects. The types and structures of these defects may have a profound effect on the properties of the materials.