Value Proposition
· Continuous Crystal Growth – the crystal is grown continuously out of a liquid solution, enabling the production of larger volume crystals compared to traditional batch processes
· Improved Crystal Quality – growth from a liquid solution prevents stress and defects caused by heterogeneous thermal contraction during cooling
· Higher Crystal Purity – impurities accumulate in the solution rather than the crystal, resulting in purer crystals
· More Efficient Production – this new technique enhances the efficiency of creating high-quality single crystals of hexagonal BN (h-BN) and graphite at normal atmospheric pressure
· Versatile and Widely Applicable – The technique has currently been applied to h-BN and graphite, which have highly desirable properties for a wide range of applications, including photonics, flexible electronics, non-linear optics, next-generation transistors and quantum information science. Importantly, the growth technique may also be applied to other technologically relevant materials which require growth from a solution
· Future Commercialization Potential – the disclosed technology has the potential to scale up for mass commercialization, with the possibility of broader applications in the future
Technology Description
· The disclosed technology proposes a new method to enhance the size and quality of h-BN and graphite crystals grown from a solution by making several key improvements to existing methods. Instead of using a crucible -- a container used to hold the solution from which crystals are grown in a furnace -- the liquid solution is suspended between two rods of the material to be grown and heated optically, which allows for continuous, directional crystal growth. This method removes the limitation on crystal size imposed by the initial amount of source material and crucible size, generally enabling the production of larger, high-quality crystals. This represents an advancement over existing h-BN and graphite growth methods, which utilize a crucible-based batch process, making it suitable for both research and industrial applications. Furthermore, the disclosed technology is adaptable, and may be applied to other materials grown from solutions for which larger crystals are desirable.
Unmet Need
· Many crystalline materials relevant for next-generation technologies, such as h-BN and graphite, require growth from a solution. While current methods used in academic labs for such crystal growth produce high-quality samples in a small batch process, they are not scalable for industrial use. This requires much larger crystals and a more efficient (i.e. continuous) growth technology and cannot be scaled up. The disclosed technology enables continuous, efficient growth of large volume, high-purity crystals from a solution, which is essential for wide-scale deployment.
Stage of Development
· Preliminary results and data demonstrate the effectiveness of this invention for growing h-BN and graphite crystals. The grown crystals are of a quality comparable or superior to those produced by existing methods. Further optimization is needed for commercialization, as the current process has not yet been scaled to produce crystals beyond what is appropriate for academic and research settings.
Data Availability
· Data available upon request.
Publication
In revision.
