Abstract
Flux growth of single crystals is normally performed in a vertical configuration with an upright refractory container holding the flux melt. At high temperatures, flux dissolves the charge, forming a homogeneous solution before nucleation and growth of crystals takes place under proper supersaturation generated by cooling or evaporating the flux. In this work, we report flux growth in a horizontal configuration with a temperature gradient along the horizontal axis: a liquid transport growth analogous to the vapor transport technique. In a typical liquid transport growth, the charge is kept at the hot end of the refractory container and the flux melt dissolves the charge and transfers it to the cold end. Once the concentration of charge is above the solubility limit at the cold end, the thermodynamically stable phase nucleates and grows. Compared to the vertical flux growth, the liquid transport growth can provide a large quantity of crystals in a single growth since the charge/flux ratio is not limited by the solubility limit at the growth temperature. This technique is complementary to the vertical flux growth and can be considered when a large amount of crystals is needed but the yield from the conventional vertical flux growth is limited. We applied this technique to the growth of IrSb3, Mo3Sb7, and MnBi from self-flux, and the growth of FeSe, CrTe3, NiPSe3, FePSe3, CuInP2S6, RuCl3, and OsCl4 from a halide flux.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 023402 |
| Journal | Physical Review Materials |
| Volume | 1 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 5 2017 |
Funding
This research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division. Manuscript preparation was partially funded by the Air Force Research Laboratory under an Air Force Office of Scientific Research grant (LRIR No. 14RQ08COR) and a grant from the National Research Council. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under Contract No. DE-AC0500OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher acknowledges that the United States Government retains a license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for the United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan ).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| U.S. Department of Energy | |
| Air Force Office of Scientific Research | 14RQ08COR |
| Office of Science | |
| Basic Energy Sciences | |
| Air Force Research Laboratory | |
| Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering | |
| National Research Council |