Characterization of Gel Grown Tartrate Crystals of Lanthanide Series Elements

Crystals have ever fascinated mankind. The growth of crystals occurs either in nature or artificially in a laboratory. The Mother Nature has grown a variety of crystals in the crust of earth, which are mainly diamond and other precious stones. Systematic study of the growth and properties of crystals is covered under the subject “Crystal Growth.” Today, the growth of crystals does not remain the phenomena only occurring in nature, but it has become a well advanced as well as widely used laboratory technique. There always has been a requirement of good quality crystals for various applications. In this regard the crystals having specific properties can be treated as the backbone of today's technological development. This led the investigators and scientists to concentrate on the developments of new variety of defect-free crystals of high degree of purity. Earlier crystal growth techniques were considered an art rather than science. Theories are now available on the growth of crystals so that crystal growth is no more an art. A variety of experimental techniques are developed and modified to such a level as to grow tailor made crystals for specific applications.
This book reports the detailed study on various physical properties of gel grown tartrate crystals of lanthanide series elements. Materials in the form of tartrate compounds deserves special attention because of their many interesting physical properties such as dielectric, piezoelectric, ferroelectric and optical second harmonic generation. The rare earth compounds have attracted considerable attention on account of their luminescent and magnetic properties. Among the rare earth compounds lanthanum, cerium and neodymium tartrate crystals were selected because of their promising technical applications in optics and magnetism. Beside this the lack of work on the growth of these materials prompted the initiation of this work.
This book is a comprehensive account of the characterization of lanthanum tartrate, cerium tartrate and neodymium tratrate crystals. It contains the observations and results of the characterization of lanthanum tartrate, cerium tartrate and neodymium tratrate crystals.
The scope of the book is straight forward and designed in five chapters.
Chapter 1 contains a brief note on the experimental techniques employed in the study. They include XRD, FTIR, SEM, EDAX, UV-spectroscopy, thermal analysis, surface characterization.
Chapter 2 deals with characterization of lanthanum tartrate crystals. All observations and findings are correlated to the theories. This chapter also presents the details of the systematic study of the characterization of the crystals. Characterization of the grown crystals has been done using different techniques. The minute surface details are examined using a recently developed technique, the scanning electron microscopy (SEM). X-ray analysis gives the nature of the crystallinity of the crystals and the cell parameters have been evaluated. The FT-IR spectroscopy and thermal studies (TGA, DTA, DTG, DSC) studies throw light to the functional group and molecular (chemical) formula of the crystals. The thermal analysis results obtained are discussed and it confirms the molecular formula. The percentage of incorporation of different rare earth ions were determined by energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDAX). UV-vis spectroscopy results are discussed in detail. Pore size, Surface area, pore volume are obtained from surface characterization technique.
Chapter 3 gives a detailed account of the characterization of gel grown cerium tartrate crystals.
Chapter 4 covers the characterization of neodymium tartrate crystals in detail.
Chapter 5 devoted to the summary and comparative study of characterization of this gel grown crystals.