Crystalline metal dendrites like the ones in this scanning electron microscope image bedevil electronics. They grow over the course of battery charge-discharge cycles and in some wet-chemistry steps of semiconductor manufacturing, and they can create short circuits between electrodes. The ones seen here, though, David Kiely grew on purpose. As part of an undergraduate project, the Middle Tennessee State University chemistry student captured hundreds of images and videos of chemistry demonstrations. These dendrites are silver metal growing on a copper wire as a result of a metal displacement reaction, yielding this micrometer-scale forest.
Submitted by David Kiely, @TheDyslexicChemist on Instagram
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