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i think it is a fundamental goal to try
to understand how you can make
structures with such a complexity at a
really small length scale and from that
point of view we're only starting to
understand a little bit of how nature
makes all its fascinating structures
over the last three years i've been
looking at ways to grow micro sized
structures by manipulating the
surrounding conditions
in this research i learned how to
combine chemistry to sculpt the crystal
while it's growing every structure is
maybe the diameter of a hair
the crystals are so small and hold
together by this amorphous material that
they can basically take any arbitrary
shape
basic science is critical we do need to
understand how and why things assemble
how and why the emergence of form leads
to certain structures without this basic
understanding we won't be ever able to
rationally design
structures materials and complex systems
that we can use in the future
over the years i've been growing
thousands of these samples and i tried
many ways to stack structures on top of
each other and to sculpt them while
they're growing i noticed of course that
with all these experiments that some
things aesthetically simply work better
than others
that's how i started to develop a sort
of style in which most of the structures
started to look like flowers because for
me that was aesthetically the most
attractive
way to make them
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an interesting feature of this
interaction was
a consideration
for beauty and consideration of artistic
value
if we're designing new structures new
materials
it is absolutely critical to think about
their aesthetic
appearance
to grow these structures we mix together
the two starting materials
and basically as soon as i do that the
reaction starts
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and then we wait for two hours
the fact that you already can grow such
a flower in two hours really allows you
to do a lot of experiments and learn a
lot in a very fast manner
a lot of great science is of course done
with very expensive equipment
and i think one of the nice things of
this research is actually that you can
use two very cheap chemicals throw them
together and already really do science
and i think that that really shows that
it can be approachable
so now we mounted the sample we're now
ready to put them into the electron
microscope to really take a look at the
structures
these are the structures that we just
were growing in the beaker when we
performed the experiment
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for three years now i've been looking at
these very strange white stripes on on
plates that are maybe only an inch long
or so
and every time i'm amazed that it is a
complete sort of coral reef that you are
diving into as soon as you look under
the microscope i noticed quite often
that i simply forget to make photos
because i just want to look further and
further on the samples and discover new
structures and then get lost
as an example i grew structures on top
of a penny when i put the sample into
the microscope it remains a sort of
magical image that if you are really
zoomed in the image is sharp and you
then zoom out that you're suddenly in
this kind of micro world that you made
yourself and that you're surrounded by
for instance tulip shapes or corals or
all kinds of flowers
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we use this as a model system it doesn't
have to be these materials it's just the
simplicity of that combination that will
help us understand
the emergence
of form the emergence of curvature the
emergence of complex hierarchical
architectures
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you