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Physical crystallography before X-rays describes how physical
crystallography Crystallography is the branch of science devoted to the study of molecular and crystalline structure and properties. The word ''crystallography'' is derived from the Ancient Greek word (; "clear ice, rock-crystal"), and (; "to write"). In J ...
developed as a science up to the discovery of
X-rays An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...
by
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen Wilhelm may refer to: People and fictional characters * William Charles John Pitcher, costume designer known professionally as "Wilhelm" * Wilhelm (name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or surname Other uses * Wilhe ...
in 1895. In the period before X-rays, crystallography can be divided into three broad areas: geometric crystallography culminating in the discovery of the 230
space group In mathematics, physics and chemistry, a space group is the symmetry group of a repeating pattern in space, usually in three dimensions. The elements of a space group (its symmetry operations) are the rigid transformations of the pattern that ...
s in 1891–4, chemical crystallography and physical crystallography. Physical crystallography is concerned with the
physical properties A physical property is any property of a physical system that is measurable. The changes in the physical properties of a system can be used to describe its changes between momentary states. A quantifiable physical property is called ''physical ...
of crystals, such as their
optical Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultravio ...
, electrical, and magnetic properties. The effect of electromagnetic radiation on crystals is covered in the following sections:
double refraction Birefringence, also called double refraction, is the optical property of a material having a refractive index that depends on the polarization and propagation direction of light. These optically anisotropic materials are described as birefring ...
, rotary polarization,
conical refraction Conical refraction is an optical phenomenon in which a Ray (optics), ray of light, passing through a Index ellipsoid, biaxial crystal along certain directions, is Refraction, refracted into a hollow cone of light. There are two possible conical r ...
, absorption and pleochroism, luminescence, fluorescence and phosphorescence, reflection from opaque materials, and infrared optics. The effect of temperature change on crystals is covered in:
thermal expansion Thermal expansion is the tendency of matter to increase in length, area, or volume, changing its size and density, in response to an increase in temperature (usually excluding phase transitions). Substances usually contract with decreasing temp ...
,
thermal conduction Thermal conduction is the diffusion of thermal energy (heat) within one material or between materials in contact. The higher temperature object has molecules with more kinetic energy; collisions between molecules distributes this kinetic energy ...
,
thermoelectricity The thermoelectric effect is the direct conversion of temperature differences to electric voltage and vice versa via a thermocouple. A thermoelectric device creates a voltage when there is a different temperature on each side. Conversely, when ...
, and
pyroelectricity Pyroelectricity (from Greek: ''pyr'' (πυρ), "fire" and electricity) is a property of certain crystals which are naturally electrically polarized and as a result contain large electric fields. Pyroelectricity can be described as the ability of ...
. The effect of electricity and magnetism on crystals is covered in:
electrical conduction Electrical resistivity (also called volume resistivity or specific electrical resistance) is a fundamental specific property of a material that measures its electrical resistance or how strongly it resists electric current. A low resistivity i ...
,
magnetic properties Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that occur through a magnetic field, which allows objects to attract or repel each other. Because both electric currents and magnetic moments of elementary particles give rise to a magnetic field, m ...
, and dielectric properties. The effect of mechanical force on crystals is covered in:
photoelasticity In materials science, photoelasticity describes changes in the optical properties of a material under mechanical deformation. It is a property of all dielectric media and is often used to experimentally determine the stress distribution in a ...
,
elastic properties Elastic is a word often used to describe or identify certain types of elastomer, elastic used in garments or stretchable fabrics. Elastic may also refer to: Alternative name * Rubber band, ring-shaped band of rubber used to hold objects togethe ...
, and
piezoelectricity Piezoelectricity (, ) is the electric charge that accumulates in certain solid materials—such as crystals, certain ceramics, and biological matter such as bone, DNA, and various proteins—in response to applied mechanical stress. The piezoel ...
. The study of crystals in the time before X-rays was focused more on their geometry and mathematical analysis than their physical properties. Unlike geometrical crystallography, the history of physical crystallography has no central story, but is a collection of developments in different areas.


Symmetry

During the 19th century crystallography was progressively transformed into an empirical and mathematical science by the adoption of symmetry concepts. In 1832
Franz Ernst Neumann Franz Ernst Neumann (11 September 1798 – 23 May 1895) was a German mineralogist and physicist. He devised the first formulas to calculate inductance. He also formulated Neumann's law for molecular heat. In electromagnetism, he is credited for ...
used symmetry considerations when studying
double refraction Birefringence, also called double refraction, is the optical property of a material having a refractive index that depends on the polarization and propagation direction of light. These optically anisotropic materials are described as birefring ...
.
Woldemar Voigt Woldemar Voigt (; 2 September 1850 – 13 December 1919) was a German mathematician and physicist. Biography Voigt was born in Leipzig, and died in Göttingen. He was a student of Franz Ernst Neumann. Voigt taught at the Georg August Universi ...
, who was a student of Neumann, in 1885 formalized Neumann's principle as "if a crystal is invariant with respect to certain symmetry operations, any of its physical properties must also be invariant with respect to the same symmetry operations". Neumann's principle is sometimes referred to as the Neumann–Minnigerode–Curie principle based on later work by Bernhard Minnigerode (another student of Neumann) and
Pierre Curie Pierre Curie ( ; ; 15 May 1859 – 19 April 1906) was a French physicist, Radiochemistry, radiochemist, and a pioneer in crystallography, magnetism, piezoelectricity, and radioactivity. He shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with his wife, ...
.
Curie's principle Curie's principle, or Curie's symmetry principle, is a maxim about cause and effect formulated by Pierre Curie in 1894: The idea was based on the ideas of Franz Ernst Neumann Franz Ernst Neumann (11 September 1798 – 23 May 1895) was a German ...
"the symmetries of the causes are to be found in the effects" is a generalization of Neumann's principle. At the end of the 19th century Voigt introduced
tensor In mathematics, a tensor is an algebraic object that describes a multilinear relationship between sets of algebraic objects associated with a vector space. Tensors may map between different objects such as vectors, scalars, and even other ...
calculus to model the physical properties of
anisotropic Anisotropy () is the structural property of non-uniformity in different directions, as opposed to isotropy. An anisotropic object or pattern has properties that differ according to direction of measurement. For example, many materials exhibit ver ...
crystals.


Double refraction

Double refraction occurs when a ray of light incident upon a
birefringent Birefringence, also called double refraction, is the optical property of a material having a refractive index that depends on the polarization and propagation direction of light. These optically anisotropic materials are described as birefring ...
material, is split by polarization into two rays taking slightly different paths. The double refraction and rhomboidal cleavage of crystals of
calcite Calcite is a Carbonate minerals, carbonate mineral and the most stable Polymorphism (materials science), polymorph of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). It is a very common mineral, particularly as a component of limestone. Calcite defines hardness 3 on ...
, or
Iceland spar Iceland spar, formerly called Iceland crystal ( , ) and also called optical calcite, is a transparent variety of calcite, or crystallized calcium carbonate, originally brought from Iceland, and used in demonstrating the polarization of light. For ...
, were first recorded in 1669 by
Rasmus Bartholin Rasmus Bartholin (; Latinized: ''Erasmus Bartholinus''; 13 August 1625 – 4 November 1698) was a Danish physician and grammarian. Biography Bartholin was born in Roskilde. He was the son of Caspar Bartholin the Elder (1585–1629) and Ann ...
In 1690
Christiaan Huygens Christiaan Huygens, Halen, Lord of Zeelhem, ( , ; ; also spelled Huyghens; ; 14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor who is regarded as a key figure in the Scientific Revolution ...
analyzed double refraction in his book ''Traité de la lumière''. Huygens reasoned that the cleavage rhombohedron resulted from the stacking of spherical particles and that the peculiarities of the transmission of light can be traced to the particular asymmetry of the crystal. In 1810
Étienne-Louis Malus Étienne-Louis Malus (; ; 23 July 1775 – 23 February 1812) was a French officer, engineer, physicist, and mathematician. Malus was born in Paris, France and studied at the military engineering school at Mezires where he was taught by Gaspa ...
determined that natural light, too, when reflected through a certain angle, behaves like one of the rays exiting a double-refracting crystal. Malus called this phenomenon
polarization Polarization or polarisation may refer to: Mathematics *Polarization of an Abelian variety, in the mathematics of complex manifolds *Polarization of an algebraic form, a technique for expressing a homogeneous polynomial in a simpler fashion by ...
. In 1812
Jean-Baptiste Biot Jean-Baptiste Biot (; ; 21 April 1774 – 3 February 1862) was a French people, French physicist, astronomer, and mathematician who co-discovered the Biot–Savart law of magnetostatics with Félix Savart, established the reality of meteorites, ma ...
defined optically positive and negative crystals for the first time. In 1819
David Brewster Sir David Brewster Knight of the Royal Guelphic Order, KH President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, PRSE Fellow of the Royal Society of London, FRS Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, FSA Scot Fellow of the Scottish Society of ...
found that all crystals could be classified as isotropic, uniaxial or biaxial.
Augustin-Jean Fresnel Augustin-Jean Fresnel (10 May 1788 – 14 July 1827) was a French civil engineer and physicist whose research in optics led to the almost unanimous acceptance of the wave theory of light, excluding any remnant of Isaac Newton, Newton's c ...
was a significant researcher in the whole field of
crystal optics Crystal optics is the branch of optics that describes the behaviour of light in ''anisotropic media'', that is, media (such as crystals) in which light behaves differently depending on which direction the light is propagating. The index of refrac ...
, and published a detailed paper on double refraction in 1827 in which he described the phenomenon in terms of polarization, understanding light as a wave with field components in transverse polarization. Crystal optics was an active research area during the 19th century and comprehensive accounts of the field were published by Lazarus Fletcher (1891), Theodor Liebisch (1891) and Friedrich Pockels (1906).


Thermal expansion

In 1824
Eilhard Mitscherlich Eilhard Mitscherlich (; 7 January 179428 August 1863) was a German chemist, who is perhaps best remembered today for his discovery of the phenomenon of crystallographic isomorphism in 1819. Early life and work Mitscherlich was born at Neuende ...
observed that the angle between the cleavage faces of
calcite Calcite is a Carbonate minerals, carbonate mineral and the most stable Polymorphism (materials science), polymorph of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). It is a very common mineral, particularly as a component of limestone. Calcite defines hardness 3 on ...
changed with the temperature of the crystal. Mitscherlich concluded that, on heating, calcite contracts (has a negative coefficient of
thermal expansion Thermal expansion is the tendency of matter to increase in length, area, or volume, changing its size and density, in response to an increase in temperature (usually excluding phase transitions). Substances usually contract with decreasing temp ...
) in a direction perpendicular to the trigonal axis while expanding (positive coefficient) along that axis. This implies that there is a cone of directions along which there is no thermal expansion. In 1864
Hippolyte Fizeau Armand Hippolyte Louis Fizeau (; 23 September 1819 – 18 September 1896) was a French physicist who, in 1849, measured the speed of light to within 5% accuracy. In 1851, he measured the speed of light in moving water in an experiment known as t ...
used an optical interference method to make measurements on many crystals. The measurements of the change of interfacial angle and the expansion of cut plates and bars were applied to crystals of all symmetries.
Crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macros ...
s with less than cubic symmetry are
anisotropic Anisotropy () is the structural property of non-uniformity in different directions, as opposed to isotropy. An anisotropic object or pattern has properties that differ according to direction of measurement. For example, many materials exhibit ver ...
and will generally have different expansion coefficients in different directions. If the crystal symmetry is monoclinic or triclinic, even the angles between the axes are subject to thermal changes. In these cases the coefficient of thermal expansion is a
tensor In mathematics, a tensor is an algebraic object that describes a multilinear relationship between sets of algebraic objects associated with a vector space. Tensors may map between different objects such as vectors, scalars, and even other ...
. If the temperature of a crystal is raised by an amount , a deformation takes place that is described by the
strain tensor In mechanics, strain is defined as relative deformation, compared to a position configuration. Different equivalent choices may be made for the expression of a strain field depending on whether it is defined with respect to the initial or the ...
= . The quantities are the coefficients of thermal expansion. Since is a symmetrical polar tensor of second rank and ''T'' is a scalar, is a
symmetric tensor In mathematics, a symmetric tensor is an unmixed tensor that is invariant under a permutation of its vector arguments: :T(v_1,v_2,\ldots,v_r) = T(v_,v_,\ldots,v_) for every permutation ''σ'' of the symbols Alternatively, a symmetric tens ...
of second rank. The contemporary usage of the term tensor was introduced by
Woldemar Voigt Woldemar Voigt (; 2 September 1850 – 13 December 1919) was a German mathematician and physicist. Biography Voigt was born in Leipzig, and died in Göttingen. He was a student of Franz Ernst Neumann. Voigt taught at the Georg August Universi ...
in 1898.


Thermal conduction

Joseph Fourier Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier (; ; 21 March 1768 – 16 May 1830) was a French mathematician and physicist born in Auxerre, Burgundy and best known for initiating the investigation of Fourier series, which eventually developed into Fourier analys ...
was an early researcher in
thermal conduction Thermal conduction is the diffusion of thermal energy (heat) within one material or between materials in contact. The higher temperature object has molecules with more kinetic energy; collisions between molecules distributes this kinetic energy ...
, publishing ''Théorie analytique de la chaleur'' in 1822. The first experiments on thermal conduction in crystals were carried out by
Jean-Marie Duhamel Jean-Marie Constant Duhamel (; ; 5 February 1797 – 29 April 1872) was a French mathematician and physicist. His studies were affected by the troubles of the Napoleonic era. He went on to form his own school ''École Sainte-Barbe''. Duhame ...
in 1832.
Henri Hureau de Sénarmont Henri Hureau de Sénarmont () (6 September 1808 – 30 June 1862) was a French mineralogist and physicist. He was born in Broué, Eure-et-Loir. From 1822 to 1826, he studied at the École Polytechnique in Paris, then furthered his education at t ...
conducted experiments to determine if heat would move through crystals with directional dependence. He found that, for non-cubic crystals, the isothermal envelope surrounding a point source of heat in a crystal plate had an elliptical shape whose exact form depended on the orientation of the crystal. Sénarmont's results qualitatively established that thermal conductivity is directionally dependent ( thermal anisotropy), with characteristic directions related to crystallographic axes. In 1848 Duhamel provided an analysis of Sénermont’s findings.
George Gabriel Stokes Sir George Gabriel Stokes, 1st Baronet, (; 13 August 1819 – 1 February 1903) was an Irish mathematician and physicist. Born in County Sligo, Ireland, Stokes spent his entire career at the University of Cambridge, where he served as the Lucasi ...
and William Thomson provided mathematical theories to explain Sénarmont’s observations. Stokes acknowledged the connection between the phenomena and the symmetry of the crystal, and showed that the number of constants of heat conductivity reduces from nine to six in the case of two planes of symmetry. The matrix of thermal conductivity components resulting from Stoke's derivation constituted a
tensor In mathematics, a tensor is an algebraic object that describes a multilinear relationship between sets of algebraic objects associated with a vector space. Tensors may map between different objects such as vectors, scalars, and even other ...
. Experiments by :de:Franz Stenger in 1884 examined the theories put forward by Stokes and Thomson and disproved some of their theoretical speculations.


Thermoelectricity

Thomas Johann Seebeck Thomas Johann Seebeck (; 9 April 1770 – 10 December 1831) was a German physicist who observed a relationship between heat and magnetism. Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted later called this phenomenon the '' thermoelectric effect''. Early ...
discovered the
thermoelectric effect The thermoelectric effect is the direct conversion of temperature differences to electric voltage and vice versa via a thermocouple. A thermoelectric device creates a voltage when there is a different temperature on each side. Conversely, when ...
in 1821, although it has been claimed that
Alessandro Volta Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta (, ; ; 18 February 1745 – 5 March 1827) was an Italian chemist and physicist who was a pioneer of electricity and Power (physics), power, and is credited as the inventor of the electric battery a ...
should be given the priority. In 1844 :de:Wilhelm Gottlieb Hankel investigated thermoelectricity in cobalt and iron sulfide crystals. Hankel showed that when certain external faces were developed the crystals were thermoelectrically positive relative to copper, whereas with other facial forms they were negative. In 1850
Jöns Svanberg Jöns Svanberg (1771–1851) was a Swedish clergyman and natural scientist. Life He was born on 6 July 1771 in Ytterbyn, Sweden and died on 15 January 1851 in Uppsala, Sweden. Career He entered Uppsala University at the age of 16. He r ...
used bismuth and antimony crystals to demonstrate a directional variation of the thermoelectric effect. In 1854 William Thomson put forward a mechanical theory of thermoelectric currents in crystalline solids. In 1889 Theodor Liebisch analyzed the dependence of the thermoelectric force on the crystallographic direction in anisotropic crystals.


Electrical conduction

The first observations on the variation of
electrical conductivity Electrical resistivity (also called volume resistivity or specific electrical resistance) is a fundamental specific property of a material that measures its electrical resistance or how strongly it resists electric current. A low resistivity in ...
with direction in a crystal (
anisotropy Anisotropy () is the structural property of non-uniformity in different directions, as opposed to isotropy. An anisotropic object or pattern has properties that differ according to direction of measurement. For example, many materials exhibit ve ...
) were made by
Henri Hureau de Sénarmont Henri Hureau de Sénarmont () (6 September 1808 – 30 June 1862) was a French mineralogist and physicist. He was born in Broué, Eure-et-Loir. From 1822 to 1826, he studied at the École Polytechnique in Paris, then furthered his education at t ...
in 1850 on 36 different substances. The results showed a correlation between the axes of symmetry and the directions of maximum or minimum conductivity. In 1855
Carlo Matteucci Carlo Matteucci (20 June 1811 – 24 June 1868) was an Italian physicist and neurophysiologist who was a pioneer in the study of bioelectricity. Biography Carlo Matteucci was born at Forlì, in the province of Romagna, to Vincenzo Matteucci ...
performed experiments on bismuth. In 1888, :sv:Helge Bäckström performed electrical conduction measurements on
hematite Hematite (), also spelled as haematite, is a common iron oxide compound with the formula, Fe2O3 and is widely found in rocks and soils. Hematite crystals belong to the rhombohedral lattice system which is designated the alpha polymorph of . ...
, another crystal of
rhombohedral In geometry, a rhombohedron (also called a rhombic hexahedron or, inaccurately, a rhomboid) is a special case of a parallelepiped in which all six faces are congruent rhombus, rhombi. It can be used to define the rhombohedral lattice system, a Ho ...
symmetry. Electrical conductivity in a crystal is now defined as a second rank symmetric tensor relating two vectors: \mathbf_i = \boldsymbol_ \mathbf_, where \mathbf_i is the current density, \boldsymbol_ is the electrical conductivity tensor, and \mathbf_ is the electric field intensity.


Magnetic properties

Until the 19th century crystals were regarded either as
magnetic Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that occur through a magnetic field, which allows objects to attract or repel each other. Because both electric currents and magnetic moments of elementary particles give rise to a magnetic field, m ...
or nonmagnetic. Magnetic crystals are now called
ferromagnetic Ferromagnetism is a property of certain materials (such as iron) that results in a significant, observable magnetic permeability, and in many cases, a significant magnetic coercivity, allowing the material to form a permanent magnet. Ferromagne ...
to distinguish them from the several other kinds which have since been discovered.
Siméon Denis Poisson Baron Siméon Denis Poisson (, ; ; 21 June 1781 – 25 April 1840) was a French mathematician and physicist who worked on statistics, complex analysis, partial differential equations, the calculus of variations, analytical mechanics, electricity ...
(1826) put forward a theory of magnetism as applied to crystals and predicted the behaviour of crystals in a magnetic field which was verified by
Julius Plücker Julius Plücker (16 June 1801 – 22 May 1868) was a German mathematician and physicist. He made fundamental contributions to the field of analytical geometry and was a pioneer in the investigations of cathode rays that led eventually to the di ...
in 1847. Plücker studied various natural crystals, such as
quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...
and related the reaction of the crystal to a magnetic field to its symmetry. All these crystals were repelled from a strong field, unlike ferromagnetic crystals. They were therefore called
diamagnetic Diamagnetism is the property of materials that are repelled by a magnetic field; an applied magnetic field creates an induced magnetic field in them in the opposite direction, causing a repulsive force. In contrast, paramagnetic and ferromagn ...
. In 1850 a number of investigations were carried out by Plücker and
August Beer August Beer (; 31 July 1825 – 18 November 1863) was a German physicist, chemist, and mathematician of Jewish descent. Biography Beer was born in Trier, where he studied mathematics and natural sciences. Beer was educated at the technical sc ...
using torsion balances to measure the small forces involved in most observations. Not only were some crystals repelled from a strong field but others were slightly attracted. These were called
paramagnetic Paramagnetism is a form of magnetism whereby some materials are weakly attracted by an externally applied magnetic field, and form internal, induced magnetic fields in the direction of the applied magnetic field. In contrast with this behavior, ...
. Between 1850 and 1856
John Tyndall John Tyndall (; 2 August 1820 – 4 December 1893) was an Irish physicist. His scientific fame arose in the 1850s from his study of diamagnetism. Later he made discoveries in the realms of infrared radiation and the physical properties of air ...
studied diamagnetism in crystals. By the end of the 19th century the three types of crystal, ferromagnetic, diamagnetic and paramagnetic, were well established and successful theories had related diamagnetic and paramagnetic crystals to their crystal symmetry. Ferromagnetic properties were dealt with by Pierre Weiss (1896) who explained the
hysteresis Hysteresis is the dependence of the state of a system on its history. For example, a magnet may have more than one possible magnetic moment in a given magnetic field, depending on how the field changed in the past. Plots of a single component of ...
by assuming that the atoms have permanent magnetic poles which are normally in random positions, but arrange themselves in parallel under the influence of a magnetic field. On removing the field the mutual effect of the parallel dipoles tends to maintain the magnetized state. He further postulated that there were domains within which all the atomic dipoles were similarly orientated and that the N-S axis could be differently orientated in neighbouring domains.


Dielectric properties

A
dielectric In electromagnetism, a dielectric (or dielectric medium) is an Insulator (electricity), electrical insulator that can be Polarisability, polarised by an applied electric field. When a dielectric material is placed in an electric field, electric ...
is an
electrical insulator An electrical insulator is a material in which electric current does not flow freely. The atoms of the insulator have tightly bound electrons which cannot readily move. Other materials—semiconductors and electrical conductor, conductors—con ...
that can be polarised by an applied
electric field An electric field (sometimes called E-field) is a field (physics), physical field that surrounds electrically charged particles such as electrons. In classical electromagnetism, the electric field of a single charge (or group of charges) descri ...
. In 1851 the first experiments on the behaviour of crystals in an electric field were carried out by Hermann Knoblauch in a manner similar to that used for the study of magnetic properties. The conductivity of the crystals, both over the surface and through the body of the crystal, made these experiments unreliable. In 1876 Elihu Root avoided some of these difficulties by employing a rapidly alternating field between parallel plates. In 1893 Friedrich Pockels gave an account of the abnormally large piezoelectric constants of
Rochelle salt Potassium sodium tartrate tetrahydrate, also known as Rochelle salt, is a double salt of tartaric acid first prepared (in about 1675) by an apothecary, , of La Rochelle, France. Potassium sodium tartrate and monopotassium phosphate were the fir ...
. A brief history on the theories of dielectrics in the 19th century has been written.


Rotary polarization

In 1811
François Arago Dominique François Jean Arago (), known simply as François Arago (; Catalan: , ; 26 February 17862 October 1853), was a French mathematician, physicist, astronomer, freemason, supporter of the Carbonari revolutionaries and politician. Early l ...
, who favoured the corpuscular theory of light, discovered the
rotation Rotation or rotational/rotary motion is the circular movement of an object around a central line, known as an ''axis of rotation''. A plane figure can rotate in either a clockwise or counterclockwise sense around a perpendicular axis intersect ...
of the plane of
polarization Polarization or polarisation may refer to: Mathematics *Polarization of an Abelian variety, in the mathematics of complex manifolds *Polarization of an algebraic form, a technique for expressing a homogeneous polynomial in a simpler fashion by ...
of light travelling through
quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...
. In 1812
Jean-Baptiste Biot Jean-Baptiste Biot (; ; 21 April 1774 – 3 February 1862) was a French people, French physicist, astronomer, and mathematician who co-discovered the Biot–Savart law of magnetostatics with Félix Savart, established the reality of meteorites, ma ...
, who favoured the wave theory of light, enunciated the laws of rotary polarization and their application to the analysis of various substances. Biot discovered that while some crystals rotate the light to the right others rotate it to the left, and determined that the rotation is proportional to the thickness of substance traversed and to the wavelength of the light. In 1821
John Herschel Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet (; 7 March 1792 – 11 May 1871) was an English polymath active as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor and experimental photographer who invented the blueprint and did botanical work. ...
pointed out the relation between the direction of rotation and the development of faces on quartz crystals. Suspecting that rotatory polarization is an effect of a lack of symmetry, Herschel established that quartz crystals often present faces placed in such a way that those belonging to certain crystals are mirror images of the corresponding faces of other crystals. He explained the connection between this arrangement and the respective rotation of light to the right and to the left. In 1822
Augustin-Jean Fresnel Augustin-Jean Fresnel (10 May 1788 – 14 July 1827) was a French civil engineer and physicist whose research in optics led to the almost unanimous acceptance of the wave theory of light, excluding any remnant of Isaac Newton, Newton's c ...
explained the rotation by postulating oppositely circularly polarized beams travelling with different velocities along the optic axis. In 1831
George Biddell Airy Sir George Biddell Airy (; 27 July 18012 January 1892) was an English mathematician and astronomer, as well as the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics from 1826 to 1828 and the seventh Astronomer Royal from 1835 to 1881. His many achievements inc ...
gave an explanation of the formation of the spirals which bear his name. In 1846
Michael Faraday Michael Faraday (; 22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the study of electrochemistry and electromagnetism. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic inducti ...
discovered that the plane of polarization may also be rotated when light passes through an isotropic medium when it is in a magnetic field. The corresponding
Kerr effect The Kerr effect, also called the quadratic electro-optic (QEO) effect, is a change in the refractive index of a material in response to an applied electric field. The Kerr effect is distinct from the Pockels effect in that the induced index chan ...
can be observed on reflecting plane-polarized light from a polished ferromagnetic mirror when in a magnetized state. In 1848
Louis Pasteur Louis Pasteur (, ; 27 December 1822 – 28 September 1895) was a French chemist, pharmacist, and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, Fermentation, microbial fermentation, and pasteurization, the la ...
gave the general relation between crystal morphology and rotatory polarization. Pasteur solved the mystery of polarized light acting differently with chemically identical crystals and solutions. Pasteur discovered the phenomenon of molecular asymmetry, that is that molecules could be
chiral Chirality () is a property of asymmetry important in several branches of science. The word ''chirality'' is derived from the Greek language, Greek (''kheir''), "hand", a familiar chiral object. An object or a system is ''chiral'' if it is dist ...
and exist as a pair of
enantiomer In chemistry, an enantiomer (Help:IPA/English, /ɪˈnænti.əmər, ɛ-, -oʊ-/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''ih-NAN-tee-ə-mər''), also known as an optical isomer, antipode, or optical antipode, is one of a pair of molecular entities whi ...
s. Pasteur's method was to physically separate the crystals of a
racemic mixture In chemistry, a racemic mixture or racemate () is a mixture that has equal amounts (50:50) of left- and right-handed enantiomers of a chiral molecule or salt. Racemic mixtures are rare in nature, but many compounds are produced industrially as r ...
of sodium ammonium tartrate into right- and left-handed crystals, and then dissolve them to make two separate solutions which rotated polarized light in opposite directions. In 1855 :de:Christian August Hermann Marbach discovered that crystals of sodium chlorate, sodium bromate, sodium ammonium sulfate and sodium amyl acetate have the property of rotating the polarization plane. In 1857 Alfred Des Cloizeaux advanced a general theory of rotatory polarization whilst studying
cinnabar Cinnabar (; ), or cinnabarite (), also known as ''mercurblende'' is the bright scarlet to brick-red form of Mercury sulfide, mercury(II) sulfide (HgS). It is the most common source ore for refining mercury (element), elemental mercury and is t ...
and
strychnine Strychnine (, , American English, US chiefly ) is a highly toxicity, toxic, colorless, bitter, crystalline alkaloid used as a pesticide, particularly for killing small vertebrates such as birds and rodents. Strychnine, when inhaled, swallowed, ...
sulphate. In 1864
Josef Stefan Josef Stefan (; 24 March 1835 – 7 January 1893) was a Carinthian Slovene physicist, mathematician, and poet of the Austrian Empire. Life and work Stefan was born in the village of St. Peter (Slovene: ) on the outskirts of Klagenfurt) to A ...
introduced the banded spectrum in the study of rotatory polarization. Theories of magnetic optics in ferromagnetic crystals were published in 1892 by D. A. Goldhammer, and in 1893 by
Paul Drude Paul Karl Ludwig Drude (; ; 12 July 1863 – 5 July 1906) was a German physicist specializing in optics. He was known for the Drude model. Biography Education Born in Braunschweig, Drude began his studies in mathematics at the University o ...
.


Conical refraction

Conical refraction Conical refraction is an optical phenomenon in which a Ray (optics), ray of light, passing through a Index ellipsoid, biaxial crystal along certain directions, is Refraction, refracted into a hollow cone of light. There are two possible conical r ...
is an
optical phenomenon Optical phenomena are any observable events that result from the interaction of light and matter. All optical phenomena coincide with quantum phenomena. Common optical phenomena are often due to the interaction of light from the Sun or Moon with ...
in which a ray of light, passing through a biaxial crystal along certain directions, is
refracted In physics, refraction is the redirection of a wave as it passes from one medium to another. The redirection can be caused by the wave's change in speed or by a change in the medium. Refraction of light is the most commonly observed phenome ...
into a hollow
cone In geometry, a cone is a three-dimensional figure that tapers smoothly from a flat base (typically a circle) to a point not contained in the base, called the '' apex'' or '' vertex''. A cone is formed by a set of line segments, half-lines ...
of light. There are two possible conical refractions, one internal and one external. In 1821-1822
Augustin-Jean Fresnel Augustin-Jean Fresnel (10 May 1788 – 14 July 1827) was a French civil engineer and physicist whose research in optics led to the almost unanimous acceptance of the wave theory of light, excluding any remnant of Isaac Newton, Newton's c ...
developed a theory of double refraction in both uniaxial and biaxial crystals. Fresnel derived the equation for the wavevector surface in 1823, and
André-Marie Ampère André-Marie Ampère (, ; ; 20 January 177510 June 1836) was a French physicist and mathematician who was one of the founders of the science of classical electromagnetism, which he referred to as ''electrodynamics''. He is also the inventor of ...
rederived it in 1828. Many others investigated the wavevector surface of the biaxial crystal, but they all missed its physical implications.
William Rowan Hamilton Sir William Rowan Hamilton (4 August 1805 – 2 September 1865) was an Irish astronomer, mathematician, and physicist who made numerous major contributions to abstract algebra, classical mechanics, and optics. His theoretical works and mathema ...
, in his work on
Hamiltonian optics Hamiltonian opticsH. A. Buchdahl, ''An Introduction to Hamiltonian Optics'', Dover Publications, 1993, . and Lagrangian opticsVasudevan Lakshminarayanan et al., ''Lagrangian Optics'', Springer Netherlands, 2011, . are two formulations of geometrical ...
, discovered the wavevector surface has four conoidal points and four tangent conics. This implies that, under certain conditions, a ray of light could be refracted into a cone of light within the crystal. He termed this phenomenon "conical refraction" and predicted two distinct types: internal and external, corresponding respectively to the conoidal points and tangent conics. Hamilton announced his discovery on 22 October 1832. He then asked Humphrey Lloyd to prove his theory experimentally. Lloyd first observed conical refraction on 14 December 1832 with a specimen of
aragonite Aragonite is a carbonate mineral and one of the three most common naturally occurring crystal forms of calcium carbonate (), the others being calcite and vaterite. It is formed by biological and physical processes, including precipitation fr ...
, and published his results in early 1833. In 1833
James MacCullagh James MacCullagh (1809 – 24 October 1847) was an Irish mathematician and scientist. He served as the Erasmus Smith's Professor of Mathematics at Trinity College Dublin beginning in 1835, and in 1843, he was appointed as the Erasmus Smith' ...
claimed that Hamilton's work was a special case of a theorem he had published in 1830. Hamilton also exchanged letters with
George Biddell Airy Sir George Biddell Airy (; 27 July 18012 January 1892) was an English mathematician and astronomer, as well as the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics from 1826 to 1828 and the seventh Astronomer Royal from 1835 to 1881. His many achievements inc ...
who was skeptical that conical refraction could be observed experimentally but became convinced after Lloyd's report. Hamilton and Lloyd's discovery was a significant victory for the wave theory of light and solidified
Fresnel Augustin-Jean Fresnel (10 May 1788 – 14 July 1827) was a French civil engineer and physicist whose research in optics led to the almost unanimous acceptance of the wave theory of light, excluding any remnant of Newton's corpuscular th ...
's theory of double refraction. The discovery of conical refraction is an example of a mathematical prediction being subsequently verified by experiment. Later theoretical work on conical refraction was published in 1860 by
Robert Bellamy Clifton Robert Bellamy Clifton FRS (13 March 1836 – 21 February 1921) was a British scientist. Academic career Clifton was educated at University College, London and St John's College, Cambridge where he studied under Sir George Stokes. In 1860 he ...
and in 1874 by Jules Antoine Lissajous, and experimental work in 1888 by Theodor Liebisch and in 1889 by
Albrecht Schrauf Albrecht Schrauf (14 December 1837, Vienna – 29 November 1897, Vienna) was an Austrian mineralogist and crystallographer. Biography Schrauf studied mathematics, physics and mineralogy at the University of Vienna, where one of his instructors w ...
.


Photoelasticity

Photoelasticity In materials science, photoelasticity describes changes in the optical properties of a material under mechanical deformation. It is a property of all dielectric media and is often used to experimentally determine the stress distribution in a ...
describes changes in the
optical properties The optical properties of a material define how it interacts with light. The optical properties of matter are studied in optical physics (a subfield of optics) and applied in materials science. The optical properties of matter include: *Refractiv ...
of a material under mechanical deformation. The photoelastic phenomenon in transparent, non-crystalline materials (gels and glasses) was first discovered by
David Brewster Sir David Brewster Knight of the Royal Guelphic Order, KH President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, PRSE Fellow of the Royal Society of London, FRS Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, FSA Scot Fellow of the Scottish Society of ...
in 1815. Brewster then detected the effect in crystals and showed that uniaxial crystals could be made biaxial. In 1822
Augustin-Jean Fresnel Augustin-Jean Fresnel (10 May 1788 – 14 July 1827) was a French civil engineer and physicist whose research in optics led to the almost unanimous acceptance of the wave theory of light, excluding any remnant of Isaac Newton, Newton's c ...
experimentally confirmed that the photoelastic effect was a stress-induced
birefringence Birefringence, also called double refraction, is the optical property of a material having a refractive index that depends on the polarization and propagation direction of light. These optically anisotropic materials are described as birefrin ...
.
Franz Ernst Neumann Franz Ernst Neumann (11 September 1798 – 23 May 1895) was a German mineralogist and physicist. He devised the first formulas to calculate inductance. He also formulated Neumann's law for molecular heat. In electromagnetism, he is credited for ...
investigated double refraction in stressed transparent bodies. In 1841 Neumann published his elastic equations, which describe, in differential form, the changes which polarized light experiences when travelling through a stressed body. The Neumann equations are the basis of all subsequent photoelasticity research. The photoelastic effect was analyzed by Friedrich Pockels, who also discovered the Pockels electro-optic effect, (the production of
birefringence Birefringence, also called double refraction, is the optical property of a material having a refractive index that depends on the polarization and propagation direction of light. These optically anisotropic materials are described as birefrin ...
of light on the application of an
electric field An electric field (sometimes called E-field) is a field (physics), physical field that surrounds electrically charged particles such as electrons. In classical electromagnetism, the electric field of a single charge (or group of charges) descri ...
). In 1889/90 Pockels produced a phenomenological theory for both of these effects for all crystal classes.


Absorption and pleochroism

In 1809
Louis Cordier Pierre Louis Antoine Cordier (31 March 1777 – 30 March 1861)
Annales.org, accessed 20 September 2009
was a French
discovered the phenomenon of
pleochroism Pleochroism is an optical phenomenon in which a substance has different colors when observed at different angles, especially with Polarization (waves), polarized light. Etymology The roots of the word are from Greek (). It was first made compou ...
while investigating a new mineral that he named dichröıte. Dichröıte (
cordierite Cordierite (mineralogy) or iolite (gemology) is a magnesium iron aluminium cyclosilicate. Iron is almost always present, and a solid solution exists between Mg-rich cordierite and Fe-rich sekaninaite with a series formula: to . A high-tempera ...
) crystals showed different colors when viewed along different axes. From 1817-1819
David Brewster Sir David Brewster Knight of the Royal Guelphic Order, KH President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, PRSE Fellow of the Royal Society of London, FRS Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, FSA Scot Fellow of the Scottish Society of ...
made a systematic study of
light absorption In physics, absorption of electromagnetic radiation is how matter (typically electrons bound in atoms) takes up a photon's energy—and so transforms electromagnetic energy into internal energy of the absorber (for example, thermal energy). A ...
and pleochroism in various minerals and showed that, in
uniaxial In crystal optics, the index ellipsoid (also known as the optical indicatrix or sometimes as the dielectric ellipsoid) is a geometric construction which concisely represents the refractive indices and associated polarizations ...
crystals, the absorption is smallest in the direction of, and greatest at right angles to, the optical axis. In 1820
John Herschel Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet (; 7 March 1792 – 11 May 1871) was an English polymath active as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor and experimental photographer who invented the blueprint and did botanical work. ...
studied the absorption of light in biaxial crystals and explained the interference rings first observed by
David Brewster Sir David Brewster Knight of the Royal Guelphic Order, KH President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, PRSE Fellow of the Royal Society of London, FRS Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, FSA Scot Fellow of the Scottish Society of ...
. In 1838
Jacques Babinet Jacques Babinet (; 5 March 1794 – 21 October 1872) was a French physicist, mathematician, and astronomer who is best known for his contributions to optics. Among Babinet's accomplishments are the 1827 standardization of the angstrom unit f ...
discovered that the greatest absorption in a crystal generally coincided with the direction of greatest refractive index. In 1845 Wilhelm Haidinger published a general account of pleochroism in crystals. In 1854
Henri Hureau de Sénarmont Henri Hureau de Sénarmont () (6 September 1808 – 30 June 1862) was a French mineralogist and physicist. He was born in Broué, Eure-et-Loir. From 1822 to 1826, he studied at the École Polytechnique in Paris, then furthered his education at t ...
showed that transparent crystals stained by a dye during crystal growth became pleochroic. In 1877 :de:Paul Glan performed photometric observations on absorption. In 1880 :de:Hugo Laspeyres pointed out the existence of absorption axes (directions of least, intermediate, and greatest absorption). He investigated certain biaxial crystals and found that the absorption axes, although subject to the symmetry of the crystal, did not necessarily coincide with the principal directions of the indicatrix. In 1888
Henri Becquerel Antoine Henri Becquerel ( ; ; 15 December 1852 – 25 August 1908) was a French nuclear physicist who shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with Marie and Pierre Curie for his discovery of radioactivity. Biography Family and education Becq ...
made qualitative and quantitative observations.
Woldemar Voigt Woldemar Voigt (; 2 September 1850 – 13 December 1919) was a German mathematician and physicist. Biography Voigt was born in Leipzig, and died in Göttingen. He was a student of Franz Ernst Neumann. Voigt taught at the Georg August Universi ...
(1885) and
Paul Drude Paul Karl Ludwig Drude (; ; 12 July 1863 – 5 July 1906) was a German physicist specializing in optics. He was known for the Drude model. Biography Education Born in Braunschweig, Drude began his studies in mathematics at the University o ...
(1890) presented theories of the absorption of light in crystals. In 1906 Friedrich Pockels published his ''Lehrbuch der Kristalloptik'' which gave an overview of the subject.


Luminescence, fluorescence and phosphorescence

Luminescence Luminescence is a spontaneous emission of radiation from an electronically or vibrationally excited species not in thermal equilibrium with its environment. A luminescent object emits ''cold light'' in contrast to incandescence, where an obje ...
is the non-thermal emission of visible light by a substance; an example is the emission of visible light by minerals in response to irradiation by
ultraviolet Ultraviolet radiation, also known as simply UV, is electromagnetic radiation of wavelengths of 10–400 nanometers, shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiation is present in sunlight and constitutes about 10% of ...
light. The term luminescence was first used by
Eilhard Wiedemann Eilhard Ernst Gustav Wiedemann (1 August 1852, in Berlin – 7 January 1928, in Erlangen) was a German physicist and historian of science. He was the son of physicist Gustav Heinrich Wiedemann (1826–1899), and an older brother to Egyptologist Alfr ...
in 1888; he stated that luminescence was separate from thermal radiation, and he distinguished six different forms of luminescence according to their excitation, for example
photoluminescence Photoluminescence (abbreviated as PL) is light emission from any form of matter after the absorption of photons (electromagnetic radiation). It is one of many forms of luminescence (light emission) and is initiated by photoexcitation (i.e. phot ...
,
electroluminescence Electroluminescence (EL) is an optical phenomenon, optical and electrical phenomenon, in which a material emits light in response to the passage of an electric current or to a strong electric field. This is distinct from black body light emission ...
, etc.
Fluorescence Fluorescence is one of two kinds of photoluminescence, the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation. When exposed to ultraviolet radiation, many substances will glow (fluoresce) with colore ...
is luminescence which occurs during the irradiation of a substance by electromagnetic radiation; fluorescent materials generally cease to glow nearly immediately when the radiation source stops. The term fluorescence was coined by George Stokes in 1852, and was derived from the behavior of
fluorite Fluorite (also called fluorspar) is the mineral form of calcium fluoride, CaF2. It belongs to the halide minerals. It crystallizes in isometric cubic habit, although octahedral and more complex isometric forms are not uncommon. The Mohs scal ...
when exposed to ultraviolet light.
Phosphorescence Phosphorescence is a type of photoluminescence related to fluorescence. When exposed to light (radiation) of a shorter wavelength, a phosphorescent substance will glow, absorbing the light and reemitting it at a longer wavelength. Unlike fluor ...
is long-lived luminescence; phosphorescent materials continue to emit light for some time after the radiation stops. In 1857
Edmond Becquerel Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel (; 24 March 1820 – 11 May 1891) was a French physicist who studied the solar spectrum, magnetism, electricity, and optics. In 1839, he discovered the photovoltaic effect, the operating principle of the solar cell, w ...
invented the
phosphoroscope A phosphoroscope is piece of experimental equipment devised in 1857 by physicist A. E. Becquerel to measure how long it takes a phosphorescent material to stop glowing after it has been excited. It consists of two rotating disks with holes in ...
, and in a detailed study of phosphorescence and fluorescence, showed that the duration of phosphorescence varies by substance, and that phosphorescence in solids is due to the presence of finely dispersed foreign substances. Becquerel suggested that fluorescence is simply phosphorescence of a very short duration. The most prominent phosphorescent material for 130 years was ZnS doped with Cu+, or later Co2+, ions. The material was discovered in 1866 by
Théodore Sidot Théodore Sidot was a French chemist who, in 1866, discovered the phosphorescence of zinc sulphide. He worked at the Lycée Charlemagne in Paris, as chemistry preparator. He was injured in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War at the Fort de Nogent. He r ...
who succeeded in growing tiny ZnS crystals by a sublimation method.
Crystalloluminescence Crystalloluminescence is the effect of luminescence produced during crystallization. The phenomenon was first reported in the 1800s from the rapid crystallization of potassium sulfate from an aqueous solution.''Light emission during growth and dest ...
is the emission of light during crystal growth from solution. The first observation was that of
potassium sulfate Potassium sulfate (US) or potassium sulphate (UK), also called sulphate of potash (SOP), arcanite, or archaically potash of sulfur, is the inorganic compound with formula K2SO4, a white water-soluble solid. It is commonly used in fertilizers, prov ...
which was reported by a number of researchers in the eighteenth century; other substances reported in the early literature which exhibit crystalloluminescence include strontium nitrate, cobalt sulfate, potassium hydrogen sulfate, sodium sulfate, and arsenious acid. In 1918 Harry Weiser summarised the research on crystalloluminescence up to that date. Neither the spectral distribution nor the excitation mechanisms of crystalloluminescence are understood.
Triboluminescence Triboluminescence is a phenomenon in which light is generated when a material is mechanically pulled apart, ripped, scratched, crushed, or rubbed (see tribology). The phenomenon is not fully understood but appears in most cases to be caused by the ...
is the generation of light when certain materials, for example
quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...
, are rubbed; fractoluminescence is the emission of light from the
fracture Fracture is the appearance of a crack or complete separation of an object or material into two or more pieces under the action of stress (mechanics), stress. The fracture of a solid usually occurs due to the development of certain displacemen ...
of a crystal. The first recorded observation is attributed to
Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Bacon argued for the importance of nat ...
when he recorded in his 1620 ''
Novum Organum The ''Novum Organum'', fully ''Novum Organum, sive Indicia Vera de Interpretatione Naturae'' ("New organon, or true directions concerning the interpretation of nature") or ''Instaurationis Magnae, Pars II'' ("Part II of The Great Instauratio ...
'' that
sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecul ...
sparkles when broken or scraped in the dark. The scientist
Robert Boyle Robert Boyle (; 25 January 1627 – 31 December 1691) was an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, Alchemy, alchemist and inventor. Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the foun ...
also reported on some of his work on triboluminescence in 1664. In 1677
Henry Oldenburg Henry Oldenburg (also Henry Oldenbourg) (c. 1618 as Heinrich Oldenburg – 5 September 1677) was a German theologian, diplomat, and natural philosopher, known as one of the creators of modern scientific peer review. He was one of the foremos ...
described the
luminescence Luminescence is a spontaneous emission of radiation from an electronically or vibrationally excited species not in thermal equilibrium with its environment. A luminescent object emits ''cold light'' in contrast to incandescence, where an obje ...
of fluorite, CaF2, on heating. In 1830 Thomas Pearsall observed that colourless fluorite could be coloured by discharging sparks from a
Leyden jar A Leyden jar (or Leiden jar, or archaically, Kleistian jar) is an electrical component that stores a high-voltage electric charge (from an external source) between electrical conductors on the inside and outside of a glass jar. It typically co ...
held against it. In 1881 luminescence excited by cathode rays was described by
William Crookes Sir William Crookes (; 17 June 1832 – 4 April 1919) was an English chemist and physicist who attended the Royal College of Chemistry, now part of Imperial College London, and worked on spectroscopy. He was a pioneer of vacuum tubes, inventing ...
. In 1885 Edmond Becquerel found that when crystals were bombarded by
cathode ray Cathode rays are streams of electrons observed in discharge tubes. If an evacuated glass tube is equipped with two electrodes and a voltage is applied, glass behind the positive electrode is observed to glow, due to electrons emitted from the c ...
s they became coloured and also emitted light. In 1894 :de:Eugen Goldstein showed that ultraviolet light has the same effect as cathode rays.


Reflection from opaque materials

The study of the optical properties of opaque substances has been closely linked with the development of suitable microscopes. The first instrument adapted to reflected light was the Lieberkühn reflector attributed to
Johann Nathanael Lieberkühn Johann Nathanael Lieberkühn (5 September 1711, in Berlin – 7 October 1756, in Berlin) was a German physician. His middle name is sometimes misspelled ''Nathaniel''. Lieberkühn studied theology initially, and then moved to physics, in particu ...
. The use of polished and etched surfaces for this type of study was introduced by
Jöns Jacob Berzelius Baron Jöns Jacob Berzelius (; 20 August 1779 – 7 August 1848) was a Swedish chemist. Berzelius is considered, along with Robert Boyle, John Dalton, and Antoine Lavoisier, to be one of the founders of modern chemistry. Berzelius became a memb ...
in 1813. A theory of the light reflected from metals was put forward by
Augustin-Louis Cauchy Baron Augustin-Louis Cauchy ( , , ; ; 21 August 1789 – 23 May 1857) was a French mathematician, engineer, and physicist. He was one of the first to rigorously state and prove the key theorems of calculus (thereby creating real a ...
in 1848. In 1858
Henry Clifton Sorby Henry Clifton Sorby (10 May 1826 – 9 March 1908) was an English amateur microscopist and geologist. His major contribution was the development of techniques for thin sectioning of rocks and minerals with polarized light under a microscope whi ...
established the technique of cutting minerals and crystals into thin sections for examination under the polarizing microscope. In 1864 Sorby studied the microscopical structure of minerals from
meteorite A meteorite is a rock (geology), rock that originated in outer space and has fallen to the surface of a planet or Natural satellite, moon. When the original object enters the atmosphere, various factors such as friction, pressure, and chemical ...
s. In 1888
Paul Drude Paul Karl Ludwig Drude (; ; 12 July 1863 – 5 July 1906) was a German physicist specializing in optics. He was known for the Drude model. Biography Education Born in Braunschweig, Drude began his studies in mathematics at the University o ...
published work on reflection from antimony sulfide.


Infrared optics

Heinrich Rubens Heinrich Rubens (; 30 March 1865 – 17 July 1922) was a German physicist. He is known for his measurements of the energy of black-body radiation which led Max Planck to the discovery of his Planck's law, radiation law. This was the genesis of Qu ...
measured the dependence of the refractive index of quartz on wavelength, and found absorption in particular
infrared Infrared (IR; sometimes called infrared light) is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than that of visible light but shorter than microwaves. The infrared spectral band begins with the waves that are just longer than those ...
wavelength ranges. By 1896 Rubens saw these bands as a potential filter that would allow him to separate out an almost monochromatic beam from the broad range of infrared radiation that his sources produced. In 1897 Rubens and his student
Ernest Fox Nichols Ernest Fox Nichols (June 1, 1869 – April 29, 1924) was an American educator and physicist. He served as the 10th President of Dartmouth College. Early life Nichols was born in Leavenworth County, Kansas, and received his undergraduate de ...
studied the '' reststrahlen'' (residual rays) obtained when infrared rays of appropriate wavelength are reflected from the surfaces of crystals.


Pyroelectricity

Pyroelectricity Pyroelectricity (from Greek: ''pyr'' (πυρ), "fire" and electricity) is a property of certain crystals which are naturally electrically polarized and as a result contain large electric fields. Pyroelectricity can be described as the ability of ...
is the generation of a temporary voltage in a crystal when subjected to a temperature change. The appearance of electrostatic charges upon a change of temperature has been observed since ancient times, in particular with
tourmaline Tourmaline ( ) is a crystalline silicate mineral, silicate mineral group in which boron is chemical compound, compounded with chemical element, elements such as aluminium, iron, magnesium, sodium, lithium, or potassium. This gemstone comes in a ...
and was described, among others, by Steno,
Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...
, Aepinus and
René Just Haüy René Just Haüy () FRS MWS FRSE (28 February 1743 – 1 June 1822) was a French priest and mineralogist, commonly styled the Abbé Haüy after he was made an honorary canon of Notre-Dame de Paris, Notre Dame. Due to his innovative work on cryst ...
. Aepinus published an account of his observations in 1756. Haüy made detailed investigations of pyroelectricity; he detected pyroelectricity in
calamine Calamine, also known as calamine lotion, is a medication made from powdered calamine (mineral), calamine mineral that is used to treat mild itchiness. Conditions treated include sunburn, insect bites, Toxicodendron radicans, poison ivy, poiso ...
and showed that electricity in tourmaline was strongest at the poles of the crystal and became imperceptible at the middle. Haüy published a book on electricity and magnetism in 1787. Haüy later showed that hemihedral crystals are electrified by temperature change while holohedral (symmetric) crystals are not. Research into pyroelectricity became more quantitative in the 19th century. In 1824
David Brewster Sir David Brewster Knight of the Royal Guelphic Order, KH President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, PRSE Fellow of the Royal Society of London, FRS Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, FSA Scot Fellow of the Scottish Society of ...
gave the effect the name it has today. In 1840
Gabriel Delafosse Gabriel Delafosse (16 April 1796 – 13 October 1878) was a French mineralogy, mineralogist who worked at the National Museum of Natural History, France, Natural History Museum in Paris and for sometime at the University of Paris. He contributed t ...
, Haüy's student, theorized that only molecules which are not symmetrical can be polarized electrically. Both William Thomson in 1878 and
Woldemar Voigt Woldemar Voigt (; 2 September 1850 – 13 December 1919) was a German mathematician and physicist. Biography Voigt was born in Leipzig, and died in Göttingen. He was a student of Franz Ernst Neumann. Voigt taught at the Georg August Universi ...
in 1897 helped develop a theory for the processes behind pyroelectricity. A detailed history of pyroelectricity has been written by Sidney Lang; shorter histories have also been published.


Elastic properties

Some minerals, for example
mica Micas ( ) are a group of silicate minerals whose outstanding physical characteristic is that individual mica crystals can easily be split into fragile elastic plates. This characteristic is described as ''perfect basal cleavage''. Mica is co ...
, are highly elastic, springing back to their original shape after being bent. Others, for example
talc Talc, or talcum, is a clay mineral composed of hydrated magnesium silicate, with the chemical formula . Talc in powdered form, often combined with corn starch, is used as baby powder. This mineral is used as a thickening agent and lubricant ...
, may be readily bent but do not return to their original form when released. The initial theory of the elasticity of solid bodies were developed in the 1820s.
Augustin-Louis Cauchy Baron Augustin-Louis Cauchy ( , , ; ; 21 August 1789 – 23 May 1857) was a French mathematician, engineer, and physicist. He was one of the first to rigorously state and prove the key theorems of calculus (thereby creating real a ...
and
Siméon Denis Poisson Baron Siméon Denis Poisson (, ; ; 21 June 1781 – 25 April 1840) was a French mathematician and physicist who worked on statistics, complex analysis, partial differential equations, the calculus of variations, analytical mechanics, electricity ...
published theories of the mutual action of a regular arrangement of particles for a non-cubic body in 1823 and 1829 respectively. In 1827
Claude-Louis Navier Claude-Louis Navier (born Claude Louis Marie Henri Navier; ; 10 February 1785 – 21 August 1836) was a French civil engineer, affiliated with the French government, and a physicist who specialized in continuum mechanics. The Navier–Stokes ...
published a theory for an
isotropic In physics and geometry, isotropy () is uniformity in all orientations. Precise definitions depend on the subject area. Exceptions, or inequalities, are frequently indicated by the prefix ' or ', hence '' anisotropy''. ''Anisotropy'' is also ...
body. Also during the 1820s
Friedrich Mohs Carl Friedrich Christian Mohs ( , ; 29 January 1773 – 29 September 1839) was a German chemist and mineralogist. He was the creator of the Mohs scale of mineral hardness. Mohs also introduced a classification of the crystal forms in crysta ...
introduced his eponymous scale of hardness. In 1834
Franz Ernst Neumann Franz Ernst Neumann (11 September 1798 – 23 May 1895) was a German mineralogist and physicist. He devised the first formulas to calculate inductance. He also formulated Neumann's law for molecular heat. In electromagnetism, he is credited for ...
published a paper on the elasticity of homohedral crystals. In 1828 Cauchy generalised the problem and showed that 36 independent constants were required to describe elasticity in crystals. George Green (1837) introduced the limitation that the force between any two elements of a crystal, however small, must lie along the line joining their centres. This reduced the number of constants from 36 to 21. William Thomson (1857) showed that Green’s assumption was unnecessary and that the thermodynamic requirements of a reversible process require only 21 constants, without any special assumptions. In 1874
Woldemar Voigt Woldemar Voigt (; 2 September 1850 – 13 December 1919) was a German mathematician and physicist. Biography Voigt was born in Leipzig, and died in Göttingen. He was a student of Franz Ernst Neumann. Voigt taught at the Georg August Universi ...
measured the elasticity of
rock salt Halite ( ), commonly known as rock salt, is a type of salt, the mineral (natural) form of sodium chloride ( Na Cl). Halite forms isometric crystals. The mineral is typically colorless or white, but may also be light blue, dark blue, purple, pi ...
and G. Baumgarten measured the elasticity of
calcite Calcite is a Carbonate minerals, carbonate mineral and the most stable Polymorphism (materials science), polymorph of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). It is a very common mineral, particularly as a component of limestone. Calcite defines hardness 3 on ...
. In 1887
Wilhelm Röntgen Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (; 27 March 1845 – 10 February 1923), sometimes Transliteration, transliterated as Roentgen ( ), was a German physicist who produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range known as X-rays. As ...
and J. Schneider measured the cubic compressibility of sodium and potassium chlorides. In 1877
Lambros Koromilas Lambros Koromilas (: 1856 – 1923) was a Greek economist and diplomat, and one of the leading figures in the Macedonian Struggle during his tenure as Greek Consul-General to Thessaloniki in 1904–1907. He also served as Finance Minister in 191 ...
measured the elasticity of gypsum and mica by twisting mineral bars.; in 1881 H. Klang carried out similar experiments with fluorites. In the period 1874-1888 Voigt was the leading researcher on the elasticity of crystals. Voigt showed that the number of elasticity constants reduces as more symmetry is introduced into the crystal. For a triclinc crystal, which is the most general case, 21 elasticity constants are required. For a monoclinic crystal there are 13 elasticity constants, for a rhombic crystal 9, for a hexagonal crystal 7, for a tetragonal crystal 6, and finally for a cubic crystal there are only 3. A summary of developments in the field was published by W. A. Wooster.


Piezoelectricity

In 1880
Pierre Pierre is a masculine given name. It is a French form of the name Peter. Pierre originally meant "rock" or "stone" in French (derived from the Greek word πέτρος (''petros'') meaning "stone, rock", via Latin "petra"). It is a translation ...
and
Jacques Curie Jacques Curie (29 October 1855 – 19 February 1941) was a French physicist and professor of mineralogy at the University of Montpellier. Along with his younger brother, Pierre Curie, he studied pyroelectricity in the 1880s, leading to their d ...
discovered
piezoelectricity Piezoelectricity (, ) is the electric charge that accumulates in certain solid materials—such as crystals, certain ceramics, and biological matter such as bone, DNA, and various proteins—in response to applied mechanical stress. The piezoel ...
(an electric charge that accumulates in response to applied mechanical stress) in certain crystals, including
quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...
,
tourmaline Tourmaline ( ) is a crystalline silicate mineral, silicate mineral group in which boron is chemical compound, compounded with chemical element, elements such as aluminium, iron, magnesium, sodium, lithium, or potassium. This gemstone comes in a ...
,
cane sugar Sucrose, a disaccharide, is a sugar composed of glucose and fructose subunits. It is produced naturally in plants and is the main constituent of white sugar. It has the molecular formula . For human consumption, sucrose is extracted and refined ...
and
sodium chlorate Sodium chlorate is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula Na ClO3. It is a white crystalline powder that is readily soluble in water. It is hygroscopic. It decomposes above 300 °C to release oxygen and leaves sodium chloride. Sever ...
. The Curies, however, did not predict the converse piezoelectric effect (the internal generation of a mechanical strain resulting from an applied
electric field An electric field (sometimes called E-field) is a field (physics), physical field that surrounds electrically charged particles such as electrons. In classical electromagnetism, the electric field of a single charge (or group of charges) descri ...
). The converse effect was deduced by
Gabriel Lippmann Gabriel Lippmann ( ; 16 August 1845 – 12 July 1921) was a French physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1908 "for his method of reproducing colours photographically based on the phenomenon of interference". Early life and educa ...
in 1881. The Curies immediately confirmed the existence of the effect, and went on to obtain quantitative proof of the complete reversibility of electro-elasto-mechanical deformations in piezoelectric crystals. In 1890
Woldemar Voigt Woldemar Voigt (; 2 September 1850 – 13 December 1919) was a German mathematician and physicist. Biography Voigt was born in Leipzig, and died in Göttingen. He was a student of Franz Ernst Neumann. Voigt taught at the Georg August Universi ...
published a phenomenological theory of the piezoelectric effect based on the symmetry of crystals without
centrosymmetry In crystallography, a centrosymmetric point group contains an inversion center as one of its symmetry elements. In such a point group, for every point (x, y, z) in the unit cell there is an indistinguishable point (-x, -y, -z). Such point group ...
.


Research community

Before the 20th century crystallography was not a well-established academic discipline. There were no academic positions specifically in crystallography. Workers in the field normally carried out their crystallographic research as an ancillary to other employment(s), or had independent means. The leading workers in the field of physical crystallography were employed as follows: * Professors ** Mathematics or science:
Airy Airy may refer to: * Sir George Biddell Airy (1801–1892), British Astronomer Royal from 1835 to 1881, for whom the following features, phenomena, and theories are named: ** Airy (lunar crater) ** Airy (Martian crater) ** Airy-0, a smaller crater ...
, Arago, E. Becquerel, Biot,
Curie Curie may refer to: *Curie family, a family of distinguished scientists: :* Jacques Curie (1856–1941), French physicist, Pierre's brother :* Pierre Curie (1859–1906), French physicist and Nobel Prize winner, Marie's husband :* Marie Curi ...
,
Drude In German folklore, a drude (, , pl. ''Druden'') is a kind of malevolent nocturnal spirit (an alp, kobold or hag) associated with nightmares, prevalent especially in Southern Germany. Druden were said to participate in the Wild Hunt and we ...
,
Hamilton Hamilton may refer to: * Alexander Hamilton (1755/1757–1804), first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States * ''Hamilton'' (musical), a 2015 Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda ** ''Hamilton'' (al ...
,
Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...
,
Mitscherlich Mitscherlich is a Germanic surname which may refer to: *Alexander Mitscherlich (chemist) (1836–1918), German chemist *Alexander Mitscherlich (psychologist) (1908–1982), German psychiatrist *Andrea Ehrig-Mitscherlich (born 1 December 1960), form ...
,
Pasteur Louis Pasteur (, ; 27 December 1822 – 28 September 1895) was a French chemist, pharmacist, and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation, and pasteurization, the last of which wa ...
, Pockels, Plücker, Stokes, Tyndall,
Thomson Thomson may refer to: Names * Thomson (surname), a list of people with this name and a description of its origin * Thomson baronets, four baronetcies created for persons with the surname Thomson Businesses and organizations * SGS-Thomson M ...
, Voigt ** Mineralogy: Groth, Haüy, Liebisch, Mohs,
Neumann Neumann () is a German language, German surname, with its origins in the pre-7th-century (Old English) word ''wikt:neowe, neowe'' meaning "new", with ''wikt:mann, mann'', meaning man. The English form of the name is Newman. Von Neumann is a varian ...
, Sénarmont * Other employment: Bartholinus (physician),
Brewster Brewster may refer to: People *Brewster (surname) *Brewster Kahle (born 1960), American computer technologist * Brewster H. Shaw (born 1945), American astronaut * Grace Brewster Hopper (born 1906), American computer scientist, mathematician, and ...
(editor),
Fresnel Augustin-Jean Fresnel (10 May 1788 – 14 July 1827) was a French civil engineer and physicist whose research in optics led to the almost unanimous acceptance of the wave theory of light, excluding any remnant of Newton's corpuscular th ...
(engineer),
Hooke Hooke may refer to: * Hooke, Dorset, England ** River Hooke, nearby watercourse ** Hooke Court, former manor house at Hooke ** Hooke Park, Woodland to south west of Hooke * Robert Hooke (1635–1703), English natural philosopher who discovered Hook ...
(municipal official),
Malus ''Malus'' ( or ) is a genus of about 32–57 species of small deciduous trees or shrubs in the family Rosaceae, including the domesticated orchard apple, crab apples (sometimes known in North America as crabapples) and wild apples. The genus i ...
(military officer) * Independently wealthy: Herschel, Huygens In the nineteenth century there were informal schools of physical crystallography researchers in France (Arago, E. Becquerel, Biot, Fresnel, Haüy, Sénarmont), Germany (Drude, Groth, Liebisch, Mitscherlich, Mohs, Neumann, Pockels, Voigt) and the British Isles (Airy, Brewster, Hamilton, Stokes, Thomson). Until the founding of ''Zeitschrift für Krystallographie und Mineralogie'' by Paul Groth in 1877 there was no lead journal for the publication of crystallographic papers. The majority of crystallographic research was published in the journals of national scientific societies, or in mineralogical journals. The inauguration of Groth’s journal marked the emergence of crystallography as a mature science independent of geology.


See also

*
Chemical crystallography before X-rays Chemical crystallography before X-rays describes how chemical crystallography developed as a science up to the discovery of X-rays by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen in 1895. In the period before X-rays, crystallography can be divided into three broad are ...
* Timeline of crystallography


Citations


Works cited

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