Theoretical and experimental morphology of monoclinic selenium

Abstract

Theoretical morphologies of α- and β-monoclinic selenium are derived based on Donnay-Harker’s law and Hartman-Perdok method (PBC analysis). In the case of PBC analysis, both Hartman’s point molecule treatment and a newly proposed detailed treatment are applied, which gave different morphologies. Crystals of α-monoclinic selenium are grown with varying evaporation rates from supersaturated solutions of carbon disulphide by slow evaporation method, and their morphologies are compared with the theoretical morphologies. Variations of crystal habits and surface microtopographs depending on the evaporation rates are analysed using the theoretically derived morphologies. It is found that the theoretical morphology derived by PBC method using the new “detailed treatment” agrees most well with the observed morphology.