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GeneralCrystallinity of Silver Wires

12th Apr 2009 06:02 UTCNH

I am curious; are silver wires single crystals or polycrystalline? If polycrystalline, are the crystals randomly oriented as in a piece of cast silver, or is there some sort of parallel growth, etc?

Thanks!

12th Apr 2009 09:40 UTCRay Hill Expert

I always thought that they were a strung out c axis crystal ...but I am not sure since most often they seem to just peter out into finer and finer diameters as if they ran out of steam and had less and less silver to draw from in the nurturing solutions.....

12th Apr 2009 14:35 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

They can't peter out for lack of silver, because they are growing from the bottom! The youngest part of the wire is the part in contact with the matrix.

12th Apr 2009 16:39 UTCRob Woodside 🌟 Manager

The wires are supposed to be single silver xls, elongated in the octahedral direction.

15th Apr 2009 06:52 UTCNH

Thanks to all for the replies!

15th Apr 2009 07:57 UTCKnut Eldjarn 🌟 Manager

Many of the heavy wire silver specimens from Kongsberg show crystal faces (so called "baroque" silver) and in some instances they are composed of stacked crystals of silver somewhat like the recently found apatite crystall specimens from the Sapo mine. On som of the specimens there seems to be elongated cubes. I think you might conclude that the basis for the formation of wire silvers is an elongated crystal growth which may comprise one crystal or many crystals in a stacked formation.

Knut

18th Apr 2009 09:30 UTCRay Hill Expert

I have seen that phenomenon Knut and find it really fascinating ...have also seen similar in copper too re the elongated stacks and branches of crystals,but not wires...I wonder why copper wires don't abound.?

18th Apr 2009 15:41 UTCRob Woodside 🌟 Manager

or gold wires??? They're pretty rare as well. Perhaps the largest question in mineralogy is: Why do xls develope some forms and not others??? Although true, it is a cheat to say that the xl form that grows merely has the least surface energy in that environment. As xls get larger their morphology sometimes changes. A good theory of xl growth should predict this. I'd be happy to know why fluorite sometimes forms in cubes and other times forms octos. There's a rumour that octos are a higher temperature phenomenon, but I don't know if this has been tested.

18th Apr 2009 15:55 UTCDavid Von Bargen Manager

Wires (common to rare) Silver, gold, copper, lead

Fluorite Octahedron, dodecahedron, cube

Decreasing temperature, pH and (but more importantly supersaturation).

A lot of crystal habit information is in the eastern European literature ( good summary in Kostov & Kostov "Crystal habits of minerals" )

21st Aug 2019 01:27 UTCPaul Brandes 🌟 Manager

Bumping an old(?) thread about silver wires, there was an interesting article in Geology last month about natural solid-state ion conduction and how it relates to wire silver formation through isotope fractionation. I have a copy of the paper if interested.....

21st Aug 2019 02:46 UTCGareth Evans

Producing large and affordable crystals of silver is a project I am currently investigating. There are many ways to do this, but using a mercury bath might be the easiest way to produce them in quantity. This way everyone one will have access to nature's art without having to sell their bodily organs.

21st Aug 2019 04:02 UTCDoug Daniels

Well, if you're using mercury.........

21st Aug 2019 06:22 UTCKevin Conroy Manager

I'm sure that Gareth is planning on growing the crystals from his tongue (in cheek).

21st Aug 2019 21:54 UTCGareth Evans

Neither from tongue or cheek! The process is quite simple and involves basic electrochemistry. Similar techniques have been used to grow some very nice and large copper crystals.It would require the synthesis of an appropriate silver salt, which is very easy to do, and I do have a few kilograms of refined 4N silver in my element collection.The real problem is time. At the moment I am committed to building a display of the lanthanide metals, and I have already posted a few pictures of my work.If there is enough interest in growing metallic crystals perhaps an article might be the best place to highlight the process. What do the managers think?

21st Aug 2019 23:00 UTCDavid K. Joyce Expert

The crystallinity of wire silvers has been fascinating for a long time. Recent work by Dr. John Rakovan shows that silver wires are polycrystalline forms. That is, there are thousands of individual crystals in a wire. Google it? John, if you see this, perhaps you can comment?

David K Joyce

22nd Aug 2019 05:24 UTCGareth Evans

Talking of silver crystals - shown are crystals of Thulium FOV 4 mm

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