I Made This!

These were all made on the last day of the PLM class at the McCrone Research Institute in Chicago. We were recrystalizing substances, looking at polymorphisms, and doing mixed fusion reactions. I decided that some of the images I was seeing needed to be captured for eternity. Where as others decided to take pictures of their recrystalized cocaine and TNT, I went for some of the other, prettier images. These three impressed me the most:



This is a photomicrograph of DDT under crossed polars at 200 times magnification. I grew these crystals myself! Ooooo, pretty.




This is mercuric iodide. It has two stable polymorphs at room temperature - both pictured here in normal transmitted light.




And this would be Benzotriazole, also 200x, crossed poles. You're looking at the birefringence, or difference in refrative indices, that's somewhere in the 3rd to 4th order.

Microscopy is fun!

~More to come on the trip to Chicago. I'll not bore you with all the ejamucation I just received. Although, I'm like 12 times smarter than I was when I left.

End Blog.