QUARTZ CRYSTAL-GROWTH

A successful method for growing high quality synthetic quartz crystals directly from a fused silica nutrient material is reported. This method overcomes problems, such as massive transport of silicate material, which results in uncontrollable deposition of nutrient on seed crystals as well as significant spurious nucleation and growth within the growth chamber. Very high purity fused silica is now being produced from the vast supplies of amorphous silica available on this continent. This method thus permits these amorphous materials to be used for the growth of synthetic quartz crystals.