How to Grow a Silicon Crystal

It's not easy!
Czochralski Crystal Growth Method from the BBC.

Czochralski Crystal Growth Process tells more about why it is difficult.

Britney's Guide to Semiconductor Physics

Britney's Guide to Semiconductor Physics
It is a little known fact, that Ms Spears is an expert in semiconductor physics. Not content with just singing and acting, in the following pages, she will guide you in the fundamentals of the vital laser components that have made it possible to hear her super music in a digital format.

Vanadium Dioxide is Fast

Timing nature’s fastest optical shutter

It's nature's fastest quick-change artist: In less than the time it takes a beam of light to travel a tenth of a millimeter, vanadium dioxide can switch from a transparent to a reflective, mirror-like state.
How this material (VO2) can turn from a transparent insulator into a reflective metal so rapidly has physicists scratching their heads, but a collaboration among researchers at Vanderbilt, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has clocked the transfiguration at one-tenth of a trillionth of a second.