Nucleation kinetics and growth aspects of negative solubility lithium sulphate monohydrate single crystal

• Nucleation kinetic studies for negative solubility lithium sulfate monohydrate are carried out for first time.
• The solubility, metastable zone width and induction period have been experimentally determined.
• It allows the identification of interfacial tension and growth kinetics parameters by the application of the classical nucleation theory.
• Under the improved growth conditions, the good quality Single crystals were grown by solvent evaporation method.
• The crystal perfection and the defect characteristics of the as grown single crystals were studied.

Nucleation and growth kinetics give valuable information about the crystal growth process, which can be employed in the growth of large size crystals. Accordingly, this paper discusses nucleation theory as applied to crystallizing negative solubility lithium sulphate monohydrate (LSMH) crystal. Solubility, metastable zone and induction period values were determined experimentally in order to optimize the growth parameters. The nucleation parameters such as interfacial energy, volume free energy, critical free energy and critical radius have been evaluated. The results have been discussed in detail. The good quality single crystal of LSMH was grown by the low temperature solution growth technique. The growth and dislocation behaviors were detected under the etching studies. It is shown that the classical approach explains the available nucleation data under most conditions used for growing LSMH crystals.