Perspectives of multiscale rare earth crystal materials

Abstract

Multiscale rare earth crystal materials hold great promise for a wide range of applications, including bioimaging diagnosis, therapy, lighting, lasers, motors, and security. Rare earth crystal materials exhibit multiscale characteristics, which originate from the trans-scale process from the microscopic atomic/molecular scale to macroscopic aggregates with particular structures, geometries, sizes, and weights. In this perspective, both thermodynamic and kinetic discussions on rare earth crystal materials suggest that chemical bonding between clusters at the interface can provide an effective approach to solve the trans-scale problem. The fundamental aspects of multisize and multiweight effects of rare earth crystal materials have also been clarified. The sizes of rare earth crystal materials are determined by thermodynamic controls because each individual monosize presents its own surface and interface geometry, and its symmetry reflects the corresponding energy state. The weight of rare earth crystal materials depends on kinetic controls, including the initial concentrations of the reactants, the reaction order, the activation energy, and the reaction rate coefficient. The only method to obtain rare earth materials with different magnitudes of weight is to scale up the reactor. In order to obtain large-weight monosized rare earth materials, a variety of virtual and uniform reaction mono-regimes have been designed by numeric calculations and created by gradual amplification of experiments. Looking ahead, multidisciplinary efforts will be required to decipher the complexity of multiscale rare earth crystal materials.