Nature’s Building Blocks

Ben de Laune
Postdoctoral research fellow in the group of Professor Colin Greaves

Crystallites are amongst the smallest building blocks of many technologically important materials and naturally occurring structures e.g. mountains.  Alongside chemical composition, these building blocks can be an important factor in determining the properties that a material will display and careful consideration must be given to the microscopic nature of the material when exploring their uses.  This image was inspired by the famous pictures of New York builders constructing sky scrapers in the 1930s and reflects the concept that from the smallest components truly important and magnificent materials can be produced.