Morphology of orthorhombic n-paraffin crystals: a comparison between theory and experiments

Abstract n-Paraffin crystals have been grown from the vapour, solution and the melt. The morphology of these crystals is compared with the predicted morphology on the basis of a recent, thorough connected net analysis. The morphology of the crystals grown from the vapour phase is in very good agreement with the predicted morphology and for the first time faceted {1 1 1}, {0 1 0} and {1 0 0} faces have been observed. The morphology depends on the supersaturation in accordance with the connected net analysis. The crystals grown from solutions have very large aspect ratios, which can be understood in terms of the dependence of the growth rate of the different faces on the step free energies of those faces.