The book entitled “Crystals and Crystal Growth” was published by Nova Science Publishers in the United States on March 4th. Prof. Songming Wan, a member of Anhui Key Laboratory for Photonic Devices and Materials, Anhui Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (AIOFM), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), wrote the chapter named “In-situ investigation of the melt structures in borate crystal growth systems” in this book. 

High-temperature melt structures, which are related not only to macro-properties of the melts but to micro-processes present in the melts, are a basic and cutting-edge problem in the fields of modern geoscience and material sciences. However, the structures have been poorly understood because of their complexity and the lack of effective experimental techniques and theoretical analysis methods. After continuous effort for ten years, prof. Songming Wan et al. have established a new method to discover the hidden secret in the melt. They proposed that a melt structure can be deduced from the crystal analogue and its structural evolution during the melting process, and discovered several isomerization reactions taking place near the borate crystal−melt interfaces by high-temperature Raman spectroscopy. They have put forward chain-like polymer models to describe borate melt structures, and have applied a new method based on the density functional theory to analyze the melt structure. These efforts provide a solid foundation for understanding the structures, properties of the complicated oxide melts and the micro-process existing in the melts.  

The chapter of “In-situ investigation of the melt structures in borate crystal growth systems” includes four sections: (1) the importance and challenges of the high-temperature melt structure study; (2) the development of high-temperature Raman spectroscopy; (3) the development of theoretical analysis methods of high-temperature Raman spectra; (4) significant achievements for borate melt structures accomplished by AIOFM, together with Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, CAS and Shanghai University, during the past decade. 

Recently, prof. Songming Wan et al. have further applied the ideas and methods mentioned above to study the structure of KNO₃ melt. Combining the high-temperature Raman spectroscopy with the first principles calculations, the dramatic changes in the boundary layer, which is about 10 microns in thickness near the crystal-melt interface, have been found. The results provide a theoretical foundation for understanding the macro-properties of the KNO₃ melt, the role of K₂O flux in the KNO₃ crystal growth, and then the formation of defects in the crystal. This work has been invited once again as a cover paper to be published in the famous crystallographic journal CrystEngComm on March 17th. 

These works are financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 50932005 and 51372246). 

The book cover and the first page of the charpter written by prof. Songming Wan