Nonlinear optical characterisation of crystal growth

Crystallization is of crucial importance in the synthesis, separation and purification of high-end materials in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry. In spite the importance of crystallization, the knowledge about the mechanisms that lead to crystal growth are not well known.

To understand the different stages of crystallization, different techniques were developed based on harmonic scattering. Various properties such as concentration, size, morphology and crystal structure can be obtained in-situ with these techniques.

The focus of this PhD project is the improvement of nonlinear optical scattering techniques combined with the more classical scattering to study the nucleation and crystal growth of metal-organic frameworks.