M. Ausloos et al., IN ONE-STEP FROM KCL TO YBA2CU3O7 CRYSTAL-GROWTH - UNDERSTANDING OF DENDRITIC MORPHOLOGY IN CRYSTALS, Philosophical magazine letters, 73(3), 1996, pp. 101-105
A dendritic morphology of crystals is often encountered in nature and
seems to be a universal structure for systems grown from supersaturate
d solutions such as KCl or NaCl. The observation of similar dendrites
in bulk superconducting YBa2Cu3O7 covalent material leads us to correl
ate the cases. From a simple new kinetics mechanism, the understanding
of such a crystal-growth peculiarity is discussed. The kinetic mechan
ism condition for the occurrence of dendritic shapes of growing crysta
ls from multiphase systems is given through a relationship between the
velocity of the growth front and classical thermodynamical quantities
. Some simulated systems illustrate the observed features.