Research and Development of the Theories of Crystal Growth

The development of the theories of crystal growth was reviewed and the limitations of present theories were discussed. These limitations were summed up as: ignorance of the structures of the circumstance phase, ignorance of the growth conditions, the employment of thermodynamics and statistical physics of equilibrium state to explain non-equilibrium process of crystal growth, and lack of theoretical model on the growth mechanism about high density circumstance and multielement crystal system. Moreover, the lately development of the theories and resarch methods about crystal growth was also introduced. Finally, some opinions about the directions of future development were proposed.