Abstract
An approach to controlling morphology and size is presented through the combination of laser-induced nucleation and polymer additives. Here, we apply the technique of non-photochemical laser-induced nucleation to irradiate a supersaturated solution (S = 1.15) of cesium chloride (CsCl). The solution immediately responds to laser exposure, and spherical crystallites are produced along the laser pathway. The crystals gradually grow into snowflake-like crystals with different sizes. In this report, two types of acidic polymers including polyepoxysuccinic acid (PESA) and polyaspartic acid (PASA) were individually added in supersaturated CsCl solution to shape its crystalline morphology; we found that a particular property of this control from PESA is uniformity in modification of crystal sizes. Additionally, we observed that both PESA and PASA were able to decrease crystal growth velocity and the quantity of crystals after laser irradiation. With the effect of more than 0.2 wt % PESA in solution, spherical crystallites were initially induced by laser; after that, crystal growth velocities and sizes became slower and smaller with increase in mass fraction of PESA, which led to identical crystal sizes. With the effect of more than 5 wt % PESA, the resulting crystalline morphology obtained by laser was flower-like crystals, whilst cuboid-shaped crystals could be obtained by spontaneous nucleation. Classical nucleation theory, crystal growth rate, and additives as large-size impurities were discussed to analyze the underlying mechanism of the change in morphology.