ULTRA-SPEED ATOMIC FORCE MICROSCOPY FOR CRYSTALLISATION

自古以来，水晶就为人类提供了魅力和用处，在古代文明中占有重要地位，具有护身符的特性，或者在早期开普勒式望远镜中作为功能上的石英透镜。自然界利用晶体来获得类似的光学优势，三叶虫的眼睛由方解石(碳酸钙)透镜组成。海滩上的贝壳也主要是碳酸钙，部分是方解石，其他部分是不同的矿物文石(但仍是碳酸钙)。事实上，在贝壳内部经常看到的美丽的彩虹珍珠母是文石晶体，有机体经过精心控制，使其大小与光的波长大致相同--因此也就有了光散射。但晶体也几乎用于我们现代生活的方方面面，从改善我们健康的药品到制造化学物质的催化剂，再到丰富我们生活的光电子设备。晶体是有组织的物质，分子以规则的、无限重复的阵列挨着排列。这种组织中的错误会导致晶体中的缺陷或缺陷，这可能会极大地改变晶体的性质和用途。晶体执行了一个聪明的技巧，通常在错误发生时将错误丢弃回溶液中，并最终只接受定位正确的分子。尽管如此，缺陷仍然存在。这些固体晶体从溶液中生长出来，或者通过组成最终结构的分子的受控沉淀从气相中生长出来，由于晶体的巨大重要性，在过去的100年里，人们一直对这些晶体是如何形成的感兴趣。然而，只有在过去的十年里，才有能够在分子水平上监控晶体生长的现代显微镜工具被提供并部署在此类研究中。这提供了大量关于晶体生长过程错综复杂的新的详细信息，为自然如何控制这些过程--以及科学家可能--提供了线索。每个晶体的结构都不同，每个晶体的生长方式都有其特殊性，但总有一些潜在的规律支配着所有晶体的生长。本工作的目标是建立一种最先进的显微镜设备，能够几乎逐个分子地观察晶体的生长，以便用户更好地了解他们的晶体是如何生长的。有了这些知识，他们将能够调整他们的晶体生长方式，以生产出大小、形状和纯度合适的晶体，以执行感兴趣的功能。无论是扑热息痛等药物，还是电池等电脑材料，还是捕捉二氧化碳以改善气候变化的材料。该设施将向所有对结晶过程感兴趣的人开放。

Crystals have provided fascination and utility to man since the dawn of time taking an important place in ancient civilisations with talismanic properties or as the functional quartz lens in the early Keplerian telescopes. The natural world utilises crystals for not dissimilar optical advantage with the eyes of trilobites consisting of calcite (calcium carbonate) lenses. Shells on the beach are also principally calcium carbonate, some parts calcite and other parts a different mineral aragonite (but still calcium carbonate). Indeed the beautiful iridescent mother-of-pearl often seen on the inside of a shell are crystals of aragonite that the organism has carefully controlled to be of a size about the same as the wavelength of light - and hence the light scattering. But crystals are also used in almost every aspect of our modern life, from the pharmaceuticals that improve our health to the catalysts that make our chemicals to the opto-electronic gadgets that enrich our lives. Crystals are organised matter, where molecules are arranged next to one another in a regular, infinitely repeating array. Mistakes in this organisation results in imperfections or defects in the crystal that can vastly alter the properties and use of the crystal. The crystals perform a clever trick by normally discarding mistakes back into solution as and when they occur and only ultimately accepting correctly positioned molecules. Nevertheless, defects do still occur. These solid crystals grow out of solutions or from the gas phase via the controlled precipitation of the molecules that make up the final structure and, because of the enormous importance of crystals, there has been interest over the past 100 years in how these crystals form. However, it is only in the past decade that modern microscopy tools that are able to monitor the growing crystals at the molecular scale have been available and deployed in such studies. This is providing a vast amount of new detailed information about the intricacies of the crystal-growth process that provides clues as to how Nature does - and scientists may - control these processes. Every crystal structure is different and every crystal shows peculiarities in the manner of growth, however, there are always some underlying rules that govern all crystal growth.The objective of this work is to set up a state-of-the-art microscope facility that is able to observe crystals growing almost molecule-by-molecule so that the users can better understand how their crystals are growing. Armed with this knowledge they will be able to adjust how their crystals grow in order to produce crystals of the right size, shape and purity to perform the function of interest. Whether this is a medicine such as paracetamol, a material to go in your computer such as a battery or a material to capture carbon dioxide to improve climate change. The facility will be available to all those interested in crystallisation processes.