Hundreds of regular patterns spontaneously emerge on a small germanium chip. A curiosity about tiny dots on a germanium wafer with metal films led to the discovery of intricate spiral patterns etched ...

And if you look closely, all of those successfully completed passes had one thing in common: They were thrown with a nice, tight spiral. But throwing a perfect spiral isn't as easy as it looks.

UCLA doctoral student Yilin Wong left a sample out by mistake. It was a small chip made of germanium, topped with thin layers ...

Curiosity about a mistake that left tiny dots on a germanium wafer with evaporated metal films led to the discovery of beautiful spiral patterns etched on the surface of the semiconductor by a ...

On a whim, she looked at the dots under a microscope and couldn't believe her eyes. Beautiful spiral patterns had been etched into the germanium surface by a chemical reaction. Wong's curiosity ...