crystal growth

The earliest crystal grower was nature. Many excellent crystals of minerals formed in the geologic past are found in mines and caves throughout the world. Most precious and semiprecious stones are well-formed crystals. Early efforts to produce synthetic crystals were concentrated on making…

…point, T_m, of the corresponding crystal). Crystallization is essentially two processes: nucleation (the adoption of a patterned arrangement by a small number of atoms) and growth (extension of that arrangement to surrounding atoms). These processes must take place in the order described, but, since crystal growth kinetics generally precede nucleation…

…increase in the size of crystals; small crystals with a large surface area are more soluble and less stable than large crystals, and throughout metamorphic processes there is a tendency for crystals to grow in size with time, particularly if the temperature is rising.

The external shape (habit) of well-developed crystals can be visually studied and classified according to the various crystal systems that span the 32 crystal classes. The majority of crystal occurrences, however, are not part of well-formed single crystals but are found as crystals…

…and carefully using techniques for growth of high-quality conventional crystals. The more slowly the quasicrystal grows, the more perfect will be its rotational symmetry and quasiperiodicity. Measuring the sharpness of diffraction pattern spots shows perfect ordering on length scales of at least 30,000 angstroms in these carefully prepared quasicrystals. Twinning…