The core of a dislocation in crystalline silicon as seen from the perspective of its electrons.
Greenish atoms are at the center of the dislocation.
The surprising result of this image is seen in the white atom located slightly above and to the right of center. This atom, which has two greenish atom neighbors, has a very subtle structure rarely found in crystalline silicon. With five neighbors and five bonds, it is known as a floating bond and previously had only been theorized to exist in amorphous silicon. Calculations for this research ran on the experimental Xolas shared memory processor at MIT s Laboratory for Computer Science, which took several weeks to produce the results shown above. In Memoriam Throughout history, scientists have searched for the fundamental laws that govern our universe.