Dear sir/madam,
Give some idea to grow a big single crystal by flux technique. I grown crystals , but very small in size(less than 1mm). I need to grow around 3-5mm crystals.
Hi,
Use the suitable solvent/s, then leave it to evaporate in dry place normally.
Kirubanithy Mk
In your statement, you have not provided dimensions and materials to be grown. Why are selective to flux method? There are other techniques too.
I totally agree with Dattatray: you must specify the material you wish to grow. Otherwise the number of options is too large to answer your question.
"Flux growth " usually refers to a material dissolved in a high melting point material such as PbF2/PbO, or PbF2/B2O3, etc. The number of options is to all intents and purposes "infinite". With such solvents one cannot simply wait for the solvent to evaporate.
First, could you elaborate on why you need those dimensions of crystals? For most applications of which I am aware, 1 mm are quite good. Also, what solvent(s) are you using? How you set up the crystal growth depends on density, volatility, etc. For a nice general guide, see: http://web.mit.edu/x-ray/cystallize.html
Non-linear optical (NLO) materials such as lithium borate are required with centimetre-scale dimensions or greater. Samples may have to be cut from the bulk crystal with a specific crystallographic orientation (or several orientations), depending on the device or application. Flux growth (or Top-Seeded Solution Growth) are the growth methods of choice for this material. If you can grow your material by TSSG - which is just a variant of flux growth - you should be able to grow large crystals. This is just one example by way of illustration. A search for "flux growth" or "TSSG" will give you many many texts on the subject.
I try to grow Ca substituted BFO single crystal by flux method. Flux method is simple and which is relatively applicable for our newly developing laboratory.
I suggest that you take a look at the paper by Haumont et al: Centimeter size BiFeO3 single crystals grown by flux method, in Phase Transitions: A Multinational Journal, Volume 81, Issue 9, 2008, pp 881-888. I cannot distribute the paper but I am attaching a couple of images of the paper fyi. If you cannot obtain the full test via your institution you might get a copy from the author (contact information at the foot of the first page).
There are also 3 papers in the Journal of Crystal Growth which are worth reading:
Burnett: Flux Growth of BiFeO3-PbTiO3: JCG vol 285, Issue 1-2, pp 156-161 (15 Nov 2005)
Kubel: Growth, twinning and etch figures of BFO: JCG vol 129, Issue 3-4, pp 515-524 (April 1993)
Lu: Phase equilib of Bi2O3-Fe2O3 and growth of BFO single crystal: JCG vol 318, Issue 1, pp 936-941 (1 Mar 2011)
Good Luck, Kirubanithy.
I also recommend Feng et al: Experimentally determining the intrinsic center point of Bi2O3–Fe2O3 phase diagram for growing pure BiFeO3 crystals. CrystEngComm 2013, 15, 4900-4904 (2013). Feng recommends the use of high purity Fe2O3 and gold crucibles (alumina crucibles give very low success rate).
The detailed information for the BFO growth has been given by the Brian Lent. My approach is similar to the explanation given by Brian Lent.
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