Calcium phosphates are the mineral component of bones and teeth. As such there is great interest in understanding the physical mechanisms that underlie their growth, dissolution, and phase stability. Control is often achieved at the cellular level by the manipulation of solution states and the use of crystal growth modulators such as peptides or other organic molecules. This chapter begins with a discussion of solution speciation in body fluids and relates this to important crystal growth parameters such as the supersaturation, pH, ionic strength and the ratio of calcium to phosphate activities. We then discuss the use of scanning probe microscopy as a tool to measure surface kinetics of mineral surfaces evolving in simplified solutions. The two primary themes that we will touch on are the use of microenvironments that temporally evolve the solution state to control growth and dissolution; and the use of various growth modifiers that interact with the solution species or with mineral surfaces to shift growth away from the lowest energy facetted forms. The study of synthetic minerals in simplified solution lays the foundation for understand mineralization process in more complex environments found in the body.

This account of the beginning of the program on laser fusion at Livermore in 1962, and its subsequent development during the decade ending in 1972, was originally prepared as a contribution to the January 1991 symposium 'Achievements in Physics' honoring Professor Keith Brueckner upon his retirement from the University of San Diego at La Jolla. It is a personal recollection of work at Livermore from my vantage point as its scientific leader, and of events elsewhere that I thought significant. This period was one of rapid growth in which the technology of high-power short-pulse lasers needed to drive the implosion of thermonuclear fuel to the temperature and density needed for ignition was developed, and in which the physics of the interaction of intense light with plasmas was explored both theoretically and experimentally.