There is no question that the field of solid state electronics, which essentially began with work at Bell laboratories just after World War II, has had a profound impact on today's Society. What is not nearly so widely known is that advances in the art and science of crystal growth underpin this technology. Single crystals, once valued only for their beauty, are now found, in one form or another in most electronic, optoelectronic and numerous optical devices. These devices, in turn, have permeated almost every home and village throughout the world. In fact it is hard to imagine what our electronics industry, much less our entire civilization, would have been like if crystal growth scientists and engineers were unable to produce the large, defect free crystals required by device designers.
This book brings together two sets of related articles describing advances made in crystal growth science and technology since World War II. One set is from the proceedings of a Symposium held in August 2002 to celebrate 50 years of progress in the field of crystal growth. The second contains articles previously published in the newsletter of the American Association for Crystal Growth in a series called "Milestones in Crystal Growth".
The first section of this book contains several articles which describe some of the early history of crystal growth prior to the electronics revolution, and upon which modern crystal growth science and technology is based. This is followed by a special article by Prof. Sunagawa which provides some insight into how the successful Japanese crystal growth industry developed. The next section deals with crystal growth fundamentals including concepts of solute distribution, interface kinetics, constitutional supercooling, morphological stability and the growth of dendrites. The following section describes the growth of crystals from melts and solutions, while the final part involves thin film growth by MBE and OMVPE.
These articles were written by some of the most famous theorists and crystal growers working in the field. They will provide future research workers with valuable insight into how these pioneering discoveries were made, and show how their own research and future devices will be based upon these developments.