Hydrothermal Crystal Growth of Piezoelectric -Quartz Phase of AO2 (A = Ge, Si) and MXO4 (M = Al, Ga, Fe and X = P, As): A Historical Overview

Quartz is the most frequently used piezoelectric material. Single crystals are industrially grown by the hydrothermal route under super-critical conditions (150 MPa-623 K). This paper is an overview of the hydrothermal crystal growth of the AO2 and MXO4 α-quartz isotypes. All of the studies on the crystal growth of this family of materials enable some general and schematic conclusions to be made concerning the influence of different parameters for growing these α-quartz-type materials with different chemical compositions. The solubility of the material is the main parameter, which governs both thermodynamic parameters, P and T, of the crystal growth. Then, depending on the chemistry of the α-quartz-type phase, different parameters have to be considered with the aim of obtaining the basic building units (BBU) of the crystals in solution responsible for the growth of the α-quartz-type phase. A schematic method is proposed, based on the main parameter governing the crystal growth of the α-quartz phase. All of the crystal growth processes have been classified according to four routes: classical, solute-induced, seed-induced and solvent-induced crystal growth.