SEARCHING FOR FRACTALS IN CRYSTAL GROWTH

INVESTIGATORS: Ken Hammons, Yvette McCulley, Anne Zellinger

I. STATEMENT OF PURPOSE OR HYPOTHESIS:

We wanted to grow the crystals of the solutions that Group 8, the Pin heads, were using in their electrodeposition experiment. We hypothesized that a crystal of a particular compound would have a specific fractal dimension and that different compounds would produce different fractal dimensions.

II. METHODOLOGY:

• Make up .2M solutions of Cu(NO3)2, CuSO4 and Ni(NO3)2.
• Place 2 drops of each salt solution on glass slides.
• Evaporate to dryness by placing the slides on a hot plate.
• Capture crystal air boundary or interface image on the computer using a video microscope. See Fig. 1.1.

  

  Fig. 1.1: Ni(NO3)2 image

• Load the image into Image 1.4 to adjust the contrast to create areas of only black and white. See Fig. 1.2

  

  Fig. 1.2

  

  Fig. 1.3

• Crop the image to include only the interface.
• Load this into MacPaint. Highlight the interface using Trace Edges. Zoom In and erase any pixels that lie outside the boundary of the interface so that it is one continuous line. See Fig. 1.3.

  III. ANALYSIS OF DATA:

  The fractal dimensions of each interface are shown in the graphs below.

  

  

  

  The comparisons show a very limited range of values. The hypothesis is null according to the very limited range of study allowed in the time frame. The second hypothesis leads the investigators to believe that there is no difference between the fractal dimensions of these solutions.

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