A phenomenon of surface energy plays a central role in analyses of most aspects of phase transitions in general and crystallization specifically. If for liquid surface energy (tension) can be measured directly for crystals such measurements practically impossible to carry out with any level of re...

A process of phase transition of first-order such as crystallization is accompanied with heat release that reflected a difference between energy levels of crystal phase and surrounding it matter that is the 'soil' for the growing crystal. The amount of heat is equivalent to difference of enthalpies ...

Crystals are state of the matter with long-range order of atoms in it. It means that in some direction the pattern of atoms locations will periodically repeat themselves. Conventionally this statement will be true in any direction in three dimensional space but for some special cases such as liqu...