Crystallization Controlled by the Geometry of a Surface

摘要

For many years scientists have scratched surfaces to promote crystallization. Crystals are observed to nucleate along the scratches. Despite the popularity of this technique, our understanding of why crystals nucleate in scratches is very limited. There is some theory for nucleation in grooves, and this does predict that nucleation in a groove should be faster than on a smooth surface. However the theories are highly approximate; in particular they completely neglect the effect of the crystal lattice.