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A crystallite is a small or even microscopic crystal which forms, for example, during the cooling of many materials. Crystallites are also referred to as grains. Bacillite is a type of crystallite. It is rodlike with parallel longulites. The orientation of crystallites can be random with no preferred direction, called random texture, or directed, possibly due to growth and processing conditions. While the structure of a (single) crystal is highly ordered and its lattice is continuous and unbroken, amorphous materials, such as glass and many polymers, are non-crystalline and do not display any structures, as their constituents are not arranged in an ordered manner. Polycrystalline structures and paracrystalline phases are in-between these two extremes. Polycrystalline materials, or polycrystals, are solids that are composed of many crystallites of varying size and orientation. Most materials are polycrystalline, made of a large number crystallites held together by thin layers of amorphous solid. Most inorganic solids are polycrystalline, including all common metals, many ceramics, rocks, and ice. The areas where crystallites meet are known as grain boundaries. Crystallite size in monodisperse microstructures is usually approximated from X-ray diffraction patterns and grain size by other experimental techniques like transmission electron microscopy. Solid objects large enough to see and handle are rarely composed of a single crystal, except for a few cases (gems, silicon single crystals for the electronics industry, certain types of fiber, single crystals of a nickel-based superalloy for turbojet engines, and some ice crystals which can exceed 0.5 meters in diameter). The crystallite size can vary from a few nanometers to several millimeters. The extent to which a solid is crystalline (crystallinity) has important effects on its physical properties. Sulfur, while usually polycrystalline, may also occur in other allotropic forms with completely different properties.

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Crystallite

Grain boundary

In materials science, a grain boundary is the interface between two grains, or crystallites, in a polycrystalline material. Grain boundaries are two-dimensional defects in the crystal structure, and tend to decrease the electrical and thermal conductivity of the material. Most grain boundaries are preferred sites for the onset of corrosion and for the precipitation of new phases from the solid. They are also important to many of the mechanisms of creep.

Dislocation

In materials science, a dislocation or Taylor's dislocation is a linear crystallographic defect or irregularity within a crystal structure that contains an abrupt change in the arrangement of atoms. The movement of dislocations allow atoms to slide over each other at low stress levels and is known as glide or slip. The crystalline order is restored on either side of a glide dislocation but the atoms on one side have moved by one position. The crystalline order is not fully restored with a partial dislocation.

Motile dislocations knead odd crystals into whorls

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Grain morphology reconstruction of crystalline materials from Laue three-dimensional neutron diffraction tomography

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The macroscopic properties of advanced engineering and functional materials are highly dependent on their overall grain orientation distribution, size, and morphology. Here we present Laue 3D neutron

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Thermal, electromagnetic and structural analysis of gas baffles for the TCV divertor upgrade

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As part of an ongoing divertor upgrade of the TCV tokamak it is planned to add gas baffles to form a divertor chamber of variable closure. The baffles promise to increase the compression of neutral pa

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Présentation des mécanismes de déformation des matériaux inorganiques: élasticité, plasticité, fluage.

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