Crystal
growth in the surface of selenium bulk samples and in selenium
thin films of different thicknesses has been studied under isothermal
conditions using different microscopy techniques (optical, infrared,
and scanning electron microscopy). The structure of the formed crystals
is described with respect to previous publications focused on crystal
growth in selenium thin films and bulk samples. Crystal growth rates
were obtained from the linear dependence of crystal sizes on annealing
time. Such behavior assumes that crystal growth is driven by liquid–crystal
interface kinetics. The crystal growth rates found in the surface
of bulk samples are comparable with those found in thin films and
a few orders of magnitude higher than previously published growth
rates of volume crystals formed in selenium undercooled melts. The
crystal growth rates were scaled with the viscosities to analyze the
Stokes–Einstein relation. A relatively high decoupling between
the crystal growth rate and viscosity occurs in the studied samples
of amorphous selenium. Therefore, the standard screw dislocation growth
model is corrected for the decoupling, which provides a satisfactory
description of the crystal growth rate over a wide temperature range.
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