Crystal Physics in Detail: Nucleation, Growth and Size Distribution
Why exactly does microgravity change crystal size and uniformity, and when does it not?
Chapter summary
crystals form in two stages, nucleation and growth, and gravity affects both through convection and sedimentation.
Key takeaways
- 1
On Earth, convection keeps supplying fresh solute to growing crystals and stirs up new nuclei, while settling crystals collide and gather at the bottom; the result is often a wide spread of sizes.
- 2
In orbit, solute reaches crystals by diffusion alone, nucleation is more even through the volume and crystals stay where they formed, which tends to narrow the size distribution.
- 3
But the effect depends on the concentration, temperature profile, container shape and timing; poorly designed processes can produce worse crystals in orbit than on the ground.
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