Physics of Crystal Growth

Alberto Pimpinelli is Executive Director of the Smalley-Curl Institute and Faculty Fellow in the Materials Science and Nanoengineering Department at Rice University, Houston, full Professor in the Physics Department at the Université Blaise Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand, France, and Visiting Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. From 2008 to 2012, he was one of the Attaches for Science and Technology of the French Embassy in the US. Trained as a theoretical physicist, Pimpinelli obtained his PhD from the University of Parma, Italy, with a thesis dealing with statistical physics models of magnetism in insulating systems. His interests shifted towards crystal surfaces and crystal growth when, after receiving fellowships from the Accademia dei Lincei and the European Union, he left Italy for the Centre d'Etudes Nucleaires and the Laue Langevin Institute in Grenoble (1991–7). In 1997, he was appointed Professor at the Université Blaise Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand, where he taught statistical and solid state physics, as well as introductory courses in nanosciences. In 2004, he was invited to the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at the University of Maryland, where he was appointed Visiting Professor the following year. He has acted as a reviewer for many institutions and scientific agencies, such as the MNEST, the ANR, the NSF, the EU, the EC, and the Romanian Government. He has authored or co-authored more than 150 scientific papers and book chapters, and has been invited to talk at many international conferences.

• Preface; List of symbols; 1. Morphology of a crystal surface; 2. Surface free energy, step free energy, and chemical potential; 3. The equilibrium crystal shape; 4. Growth and dissolution crystal shapes: Frank's model; 5. Crystal growth: the abc; 6. Growth and evaporation of a stepped surface; 7. Diffusion; 8. Thermal smoothing of a surface; 9. Silicon and other semiconducting materials; 10. Growth instabilities of a planar front; 11. Nucleation and the adatom diffusion length; 12. Growth roughness at long lengthscales in the linear approximation; 13. The Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation; 14. Growth without evaporation; 15. Elastic interactions between defects on a crystal surface; 16. General equations of an elastic solid; 17. Technology, crystal growth and surface science; Appendices; References; Index.

'This book is an absolute 'must' to anyone interested in surface processes, growth, and the connection between the two. It is written at the graduate-student level, and would certainly be appropriate for an advanced course in statistical materials physics or as part of an advanced surface physics or condensed-matter physics course. The breadth of the book is truly and absolutely remarkable, and one can only be impressed at the amount of material the authors have been able to integrate - in a logical and very readable manner - in such a compact volume which, in addition, contains a large number of clearly-drawn figures and illustrations that help to capture the essence of the concepts they illustrate. The book incorporates … progress in the area of surface physics and growth, and as such provides a very valuable portrait of the current state of affairs in the field. It is my conviction that the book is here to stay: the statistical physics of growth, as presented in this remarkable book, is robust enough to withstand the assault of time. I recommend the Physics of Crystal Growth by Pimpinelli and Villain, very strongly.' Journal of the Canadian Physical Society