The end of crystal growing as an art?

摘要

Mankind has always been fascinated by the beauty and morphology of natural crystals, and the synthetic growth of faceted single crystals from solution was first achieved centuries ago. Now it is possible to purchase complete kits for growing crystals. But only one century has elapsed since the first single crystals were obtained from melts, firstly by Vemeuil and, soon afterwards, by Czochralski (Cz).