Crystal Growth Simulator (2D)

This 2D companion reduces crystal growth to its governing driving force: a seed nucleates at the center of a supersaturated solution, and every branch tip advances at a rate set by classical growth kinetics, v = k(T)·(S − 1)^1.5, so raising the supersaturation slider speeds growth while dropping it below S = 1 switches the front to dissolution. New branch tips spawn along the directions fixed by the chosen crystal system — six-fold for hexagonal, four-fold for cubic, or a single elongated axis for an orthorhombic needle habit — with a branching probability drawn from a nucleation-barrier term that falls sharply as supersaturation rises, so the crystal stays smooth and faceted near equilibrium and turns dendritic and unstable at high driving force, exactly as real solution-grown crystals do. Temperature separately tunes the kinetic coefficient and the roughness of each branch, letting you see how a cold, low-supersaturation bath grows clean facets while a hot, highly supersaturated one produces a fragile, tree-like crystal.