Crystal growth: from fundamentals to applications (Tatyana B. Bekker)
The course provides a comprehensive overview of crystal growth for students interested in
broadening their perspective of the crystal growth field and learning about new materials and
techniques. A wide range of crystal growth topic is covered, including historical background of
the subject, fundamentals of crystal growth such as thermodynamics, kinetics and growth
mechanisms of crystals grown from melt, solution and vapor; large scale bulk crystal growth to
thin films and nanoscale dimensions; about macroscopic and atomistic transport processes in
crystal growth including modeling, simulation and in-situ experiments. A wide range of
materials treated in this course includes semiconductors, nonlinear optical crystals, metals,
biominerals, organic crystals. Within the course scope some aspects of basic phase diagrams
will be considered.
The course also focuses on the experimental techniques of crystal growth. It discusses the major
techniques categorized by solid–solid, liquid–solid, and vapor–solid equilibria and describes
characterization techniques essential to measuring the quality of grown crystals.