[time-nuts] How quartz crystals are (were) fabricated

[Alan Melia]

all crystals would have been subject to X-rays to some extent because this 
was how the planes were located and the cutting angles determined. The dose 
rate was probably quite low in this case.....I dont remember seeing much 
protection around the machine in the lab I worked in.

Alan
G3NYK

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Charles P. Steinmetz" <charles_steinmetz at lavabit.com>
To: "Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement" 
<time-nuts at febo.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 01, 2013 2:52 PM
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] How quartz crystals are (were) fabricated


> Bob wrote:
>
>>The X-Ray process does nothing good to the crystal. It's impact is highly 
>>dependent on how "dirty" the crystal is.
>
> Bob,
>
> Do you have authoritative references for this proposition?  If not, can 
> you identify what data and what inferences it is based on?
>
> I could imagine the X-ray process relieving stress in the crystal (perhaps 
> to advantage), or disrupting the crystal structure (likely detrimental). 
> I'm interested to know if anyone has researched this in a systematic way 
> and, if so, what they found.  (My intuition favors the disruption 
> hypothesis over stress relief, but I'm much more interested in research 
> and data than in intuition or speculation.)  Data on other forms of 
> radiation would also be interesting, if research has been done.  (We 
> already know that heat can be beneficial, at least in certain 
> circumstances, so I'm not so interested in that at the moment.)
>
> Of course, when the X-ray technique was developed most crystals were not 
> housed in evacuated holders, so atmospheric and environmental factors were 
> larger contributors (at least to aging) than they are today.  That could 
> have obscured researchers' ability to discriminate the effects of the 
> X-ray treatment in contemporaneous testing.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Charles
>
>
>
>
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