Does surface roughness decrease by increasing the surface tension in terms of supersaturation?
Surface tension increases with increasing of rate of growth. Rate of growth increases with increasing of supersaturation. So you can say that surface tension increase by increasing the solution superstauration
yes... My question is if increase in supersaturation may reduce the surface roughness
If you increase supersaturation the quality of crystall will decrease. If you want to get high-quality crystals you must decrease supersaturation and the rate of growth.
Dear Dmitry Nuzhdin,
What about the rapid grown crystals?
You should understand that it depends on many factors such us homogeneity of temperaure, speed of mattere delivery to the face of crystall, etc. The best thing to do is to look through arcticles and books devoted to growth of such type of crystalls.
Concerning rapid grown crystalls it needs to use another type of techniques to get these crystals. Unfortunally, I can't answer to your questiion about rapid growth.
To come back to the original question. The surface tension is not influenced a lot by supersaturation. Dmitry pointed out that growing under high supersaturation leads to irregular (low quality) rough crystals. This is not a consequence of surface tension, but more a consequence of the fact that the rate of deposition of new material on the crystal is higher then the time that the surface can relax to its preferential morphology. As a consequence you get highly irregular surfaces at high supersaturations.
Within your question there are too much questions !
Are you interested in the surface tension of the solution? Or in the tension of the interface between the crystal face and the growth solution ?
What's about the character of your growing crystal face ? Flat, stepped, kinked?
Send me, please, more information !
Dino
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