Use of frit-disc crucible sets to make solution growth more quantitative and versatile

Abstract

The recent availability of step-edge, frit-disc crucible sets (generally sold as Canfield Crucible Sets or CCS) has led to multiple innovations associated with our group's use of solution growth. Use of CCS allows for the clean separation of liquid from solid phases during the growth process. This clean separation enables the reuse of the decanted liquid, either allowing for simple, economic, savings associated with recycling expensive precursor elements or allowing for the fractionation of a growth into multiple, small steps, revealing the progression of multiple solidifications. Clean separation of liquid from solid phases also allows for the determination of the liquidus line (or surface) and the creation, or correction, of composition-temperature phase diagrams. The reuse of clean decanted liquid has also allowed us to prepare liquids ideally suited for the growth of large single crystals of specific phases by tuning the composition of the melt to the optimal composition for growth of the desired phase, often with reduced nucleation sites. Finally, we discuss how solution growth and CCS use can be harnessed to provide a plethora of composition-temperature data points defining liquidus lines or surfaces with differing degrees of precision to either test or anchor artificial intelligence and/or machine learning based attempts to augment and extend the limited experimentally determined data base.