[time-nuts] Better quartz crystals with single isotope ?

djl djl at montana.com
Sun Apr 22 17:34:30 UTC 2018


Darn. maybe not grain boundaries, but dislocations? or both?
Don

On 2018-04-22 10:19, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:
> Silicon comes in a number of isotopes but 95% of it is Silicon-28.
> 
> When you make pure mono-crystaline silicon, you get 50-60% better
> thermal conductivity if you only use Silicon-28 atoms.
> 
> Yes, you read that right:  50-60% improvement for removing the
> remaining 5% other silicon isotopes, and for this and other reasons,
> sorting silicon atoms by isotope is now a thing, which amongst other
> side effects have made the Advogardo Project possible.
> 
> I can't help wonder if there may be similar interesting effects in
> quartz crystals, if they were monoisotopic ?
> 
> Several relevant mechanisms can be imagined, lower internal damping,
> higher stiffness etc. etc.
> 
> We know a LOT about quartz and have a very good theory for its
> behaviours, but i find no signs anybody has ever touched monoisotopic
> Quartz.
> 
> The obvious experiment is not rocket-science, nor does it demand
> inordinate resources for amateurs, see for instance from 03:35:
> 
> 	https://archive.org/details/59554KrystallosCF
> 
> But it is clearly beyond what I have time to persue.
> 
> Do we know anybody in the quartz business who needs a really cool
> research project ?
> 
> Poul-Henning

-- 
Dr. Don Latham
PO Box 404, Frenchtown, MT, 59834
VOX: 406-626-4304




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