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Inorganic Chemistry

Chemistry In Pictures

Chemistry in Pictures: Violets are blue, and roses are black

by Manny Morone
February 11, 2020
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Most Popular in Materials

A collection of crystals that look like a black rose flower with green leaves sticking out from under it.
Credit: Bhakti Patel

This cluster of crystals wasn’t made with a mold, but rather Bhakti Patel made it in a lab. She’s a PhD student in Joe Kolis’s lab at Clemson University, which works on developing new magnetic and nonlinear optical materials. Patel mixed the compounds V2O5, SnO2, and CsF using a high-pressure and high-temperature hydrothermal method, which mimics the way many mineral crystals form in nature. She hoped to make a new compound containing vanadium and tin in a single structure but instead ended up with two different compounds: “leaves” of Cs2SnF6, which are green due to V4+ impurities, and “petals” of Cs2V3O8, which are black because of mixed V4+ and V5+ ions in the compound’s lattice.

Submitted by Bhakti Patel. You can follow her on Instagram at @crystalcrazeblue.

Do science. Take pictures. Win money. Enter our photo contest here.

Related C&EN Content:

Chemistry in Pictures: Enchanted rose

Chemistry in Pictures: Crystal dahlia

Chemistry in Pictures: Crystals in bloom.

Chemical & Engineering News
ISSN 0009-2347
Copyright © 2025 American Chemical Society

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