The Atomistic Nature of Crystal Growth

Abstract

Crystal growth and nucleation are treated in the specialized literature in different ways depending on the discipline in question (physics, physical chemistry, chemical engineering) and on the theoretical approaches (atomistic vs continuum approach as regards crystal growth, phase vs chemical concept as regards nucleation). This book relates the different approaches to one another, giving preference to atomistic treatments by the methods of statistical thermodynamics and chemical kinetics. This unified approach also facilitates an understanding of some related phenomena of surface physics, such as adsorption, wetting etc. The book allows research novices and graduate students to get an insight into the physics of the phenomena and to interpret some of the experimental results.