Wang Jian, Yox Philip, Kovnir Kirill
Department of Chemistry, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS, United States.
Department of Chemistry, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, United States.
Front Chem. 2020 Apr 2;8:186. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2020.00186. eCollection 2020.
Flux crystal growth has been widely applied to explore new phases and grow crystals of emerging materials. To accommodate the needs of high-quality single crystals, the flux crystal growth should be reliable, controllable, and predictable. The selections of suitable flux and growth conditions remain empirical due to the lack of systematic investigation especially for reactions, which involve highly volatile components, such as P and As. Considering the flux elements, often the system in question is a quaternary or a higher multinary system, which drastically increases complexity. In this manuscript, on the examples of flux growth of phosphides and arsenides, guidelines of flux selections, existing challenges, and future directions are discussed. We expect that the field will be further developed by applying techniques and computational modeling of the nucleation and growth kinetics. Additionally, leveraging variables other than temperature, such as applied pressure, will make flux growth a more powerful tool in the future.
助熔剂法晶体生长已被广泛应用于探索新相和生长新兴材料的晶体。为了满足高质量单晶的需求，助熔剂法晶体生长应该可靠、可控且可预测。由于缺乏系统的研究，特别是对于涉及高挥发性组分（如磷和砷）的反应，合适助熔剂和生长条件的选择仍然是经验性的。考虑到助熔剂元素，所讨论的系统通常是四元或更高元的多元系统，这极大地增加了复杂性。在本手稿中，以磷化物和砷化物的助熔剂法生长为例，讨论了助熔剂选择的指导原则、现存挑战和未来方向。我们期望通过应用成核和生长动力学的技术及计算模型，该领域将得到进一步发展。此外，利用除温度以外的变量，如外加压力，将使助熔剂法生长在未来成为更强大的工具。
