Initializing Crystal Growth...

Today, I grew my first crystal in the lab!

In addition to conducting extensive literature review on Kagome compounds to determine which one holds the most potential for my experiment, I have been reading a lot about the crystal growth process so that I will be able to complete my experiments as independently as I can. (Of course, given the fact that crystal growth takes place in furnaces that can reach 1200 degress Celsius, I will still have to be supervised for safety reasons.) I practiced crystal growth on YMn6Sn6. This compound was grown by my mentor and other members of the lab, and because it resulted in a variety of interesting features, we keep stores of these crystals for future study in our lab and in case we want to ship samples to other labs for addtional testing.

I used the flux growth method to synthesize the crystals. You can actually try to grow your own crystals at home using this tutorial here! We essentially combine the constituents of our crystal and heat the mixture until it forms an oversaturated solution. Then, as we slowly cool down our system, our crystals will precipitate out.

To grow YMn6Sn6, I placed yttrium, manganese and tin in a 2ml aluminum oxide crucible. The melting point of tin is much lower than yytrium and manganese, so we use an excess of tin in our crucible; as it heats up and liquefies, it helps dissolve the other elements. After placing the crucible inside a quartz tube along with quartz wool to filter excess flux (excess tin),the tube was then evacuated and sealed inside a silica ampoule to create an inert atmosphere for the reaction. The ampoule was put into a furnace, heated to 1150 degree C, and cooled down to 650 degree C over one week. Once the temperature reached 650 degree C, the remaining flux was decanted out using a centrifuge. We obtained well-formed hexagonal crystals with mass up to 50mg.

In summary, today I successfully grew my first crystal. Stay tuned for new material syntheses coming soon!