Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking in Crystal Growth

有些晶体有两种可能的形状，它们彼此互为镜像。在溶液生长中，通常获得手性晶体的外消旋混合物，但在研磨下，实验表明仅一种类型的对映体存活。本文从理论上研究了这一现象，揭示了同手性是由不同对映体微晶团簇靠近时的相互拮抗作用引起的。该效应适用于有机分子对映体的分离，并可能与生命中同手性的起源有关。

Some crystals have two possible shapes that are mutually mirror image to each other. In the solution growth, one normally obtains racemic mixture of chiral crystals, but under grinding, it is experimentally shown that only one type of enantiomer survives. Presentresearch studies this phenomena theoretically, and reveals that homochirality is caused by the mutual antagonism between clusters of different enantiomeric crystallites when they come close to each other. The effect is applicable to separate enantiomeric form of organic molecules, and might be relevant to the origin of homochirality in life.