In one step from KC1 to YBa2Cu3O7 crystal growth: Understanding of dendritic morphology in crystals

A dendritic morphology of crystals is often encountered in nature and seems to be a universal structure for systems grown from supersaturated solutions such as KC1 or NaC1. The observation of similar dendrites in bulk superconducting YBa2Cu307 covalent material leads us to correlate the cases. From a simple new kinetics mechanism, the understanding of such a crystal-growth peculiarity is discussed. The kinetic mechanism condition for the occurrence of dendritic shapes of growing crystals from multiphase systems is given through a relationship between the velocity of the growth front and classical thermodynamical quantities. Some simulated systems illustrate the observed features