Three-dimensional reconstruction of experimentally grown xenon crystals and characterization of their morphological transitions

We have determined the thickness of the fins of experimentally grown xenon dendrites and found gratifying agreement with analytical predictions of Brener and Temkin (Phys. Rev. E 51 (1995) 351). A new method of three-dimensional reconstruction from projections is presented, which enables us to prove that the fins are an inherent property of the dendrite and cannot be treated as a mere small perturbation of an Ivantsov paraboloid. We present a method of characterizing the transitions between morphologies such as dendrites, seaweed and doublons by a transformation to a rotation, scaling and translation invariant morphology space and show that transitions can be represented as paths in this space.