In-situ observation of faceted growth of benzophenone single crystals

• Faceted growth of benzophenone was in-situ observed.
• Growth rate of various faces were obtained from t–x plot.
• The results were explained based on attachment energy model.

Melt growth of benzophenone was in-situ observed under various cooling rate and temperature gradient. The melt growth experiments were performed for various cooling rate of melt and various temperature gradients. The movement of growth interface with time was measured for various growth faces such as (001), (101) and (011) and the growth rates of the respective faces were calculated. It was found that the growth rate of all the faces increased with cooling rate of the melt. Steady state growth was observed in the experiments with low temperature gradient while, the steep gradient leads to unstable growth of crystal. The observed growth rate variation was explained using the attachment energy model.