Crystal growth and defects characterization of zinc tris (thiourea) sulfate: a novel metalorganic nonlinear optical crystal

Single crystals of the metalorganic nonlinear optical material zinc tris (thiourea) sulfate (ZTS) were grown from aqueous solution. The morphology of the crystals was indexed. The grown crystals were characterized by recording the powder X-ray diffraction pattern and by identifying the diffracting planes. Spectrophotometric studies on ZTS reveal that it has good transparency for the Nd: YAG laser fundamental wavelength. Differential thermal analysis of ZTS indicates that the material does not sublime before melting but decomposes immediately after melting. The defect content of the crystals was estimated using etching and X-ray topography. The mechanical hardness anisotropy was evaluated in the (100) plane, which indicates the presence of soft directions.

Morphology controlled synthesis of Al doped ZnO nanosheets on Al alloy substrate by low-temperature solution growth method

We report the morphology-controlled synthesis of aluminium (Al) doped zinc oxide (ZnO) nanosheets on Al alloy (AA-6061) substrate by a low-temperature solution growth method without using any external seed layer and doping process. Doped ZnO nanosheets were obtained at low temperatures of 60-90 degrees C for the growth time of 4 hours. In addition to the synthesis, the effect of growth temperature on the morphological changes of ZnO nanosheets is also reported. As-synthesized nanosheets are characterized by FE-SEM, XRD TEM and XPS for their morphology, crystallinity, microstructure and compositional analysis respectively. The doping of Al in ZnO nanosheets is confirmed with EDXS and XPS. Furthermore, the effect of growth temperature on the morphological changes was studied in the range of 50 to 95 degrees C. It was found that the thickness and height of the nanosheets varied with respect to the growth temperature. The study has given an important insight into the structural morphology with respect to the growth temperature, which in turn enabled us to determine the growth temperature window for the ZnO nanosheets. These Al doped ZnO nanosheets have potential application possibilities in gas sensors, solar cells and energy harvesting devices like nanogenerators.

DPIV and Interferometry Technique for Velocity Field and Concentration Fields Measurement in Crystal Growth

The property of crystal depends seriously on the solution concentration distribution near the growth surface of a crystal. However, the concentration distributions are affected by the diffusion and convection of the solution. In the present experiment, the two methods of optical measurement are used to obtained velocity field and concentration field of NaClO₃ solution. The convection patterns in sodium chlorate (NaClO₃) crystal growth are measured by Digital Particle image Velocimetry (DPIV) technology. The 2-dimentional velocity distributions in the solution of NaClO3 are obtained from experiments. And concentration field are obtained by a Mach-Zehnder interferometer with a phase shift servo system. Interference patterns were recorded directly by a computer via a CCD camera. The evolution of velocity field and concentration field from dissolution to crystallization are visualized clearly. The structures of velocity fields were compared with that of concentration field.

Concentration distribution in solution crystal growth: effect of moving interface conditions

The linear diffusion-reaction theory with finite interface kinetics is employed to describe the dissolution and the growth processes. The results show that it is imperative to consider the effect of the moving interfaces on the concentration distribution at the growth interface for some cases. For small aspect ratio and small gravity magnitude, the dissolution and the growth interfaces must be treated as the moving boundaries within an angle range of 0 degrees < gamma < 50 degrees in this work. For large aspect ratio or large gravity magnitude, the effect of the moving interfaces on the concentration distribution at the growth interface can be neglected except for gamma < - 50 degrees.

Magnetic field design for floating zone crystal growth

The magnetic fields produced by electrical coils are designed for P-doped Si crystal growth in a floating full zone in microgravity environment. The fields are designed specially to reduce the how near the free surface and then in the melt zone by adjusting the coil positions near the melt zone. The effects of the designed magnetic fields on reducing the Row velocity and the non-uniformity of the concentration distribution in the melt zone are better than those of the case of a uniform longitudinal magnetic field, obtained by numerical simulation. It is expected to improve the radial macro-segregation and reduce the convection in the crystal growth at the same time by using the designed magnetic field.

The convection during NaClO3 crystal growth observed by the phase shift interferometer

An optical diagnostic system consisting of the Mach-Zehnder interferometer with the phase shift device and an image processor has been developed for the study of the kinetics of the crystal growing process. The dissolution and crystallization process of NaClO3 crystal has been investigated. The concentration distributions around a growing and dissolving crystal have been obtained by using phase-shift of four-steps theory for the interpretation of the interferograms. The convection (a plume flow) has been visualized and analyzed in the process of the crystal growth. The experiment demonstrates that the buoyancy convection dominates the growth rate of the crystal growing face on the ground-based experiment.

Progress In Modeling Of Fluid Flows In Crystal Growth Processes

Modeling of fluid flows in crystal growth processes has become an important research area in theoretical and applied mechanics. Most crystal growth processes involve fluid flows, such as flows in the melt, solution or vapor. Theoretical modeling has played an important role in developing technologies used for growing semiconductor crystals for high performance electronic and optoelectronic devices. The application of devices requires large diameter crystals with a high degree of crystallographic perfection, low defect density and uniform dopant distribution. In this article, the flow models developed in modeling of the crystal growth processes such as Czochralski, ammonothermal and physical vapor transport methods are reviewed. In the Czochralski growth modeling, the flow models for thermocapillary flow, turbulent flow and MHD flow have been developed. In the ammonothermal growth modeling, the buoyancy and porous media flow models have been developed based on a single-domain and continuum approach for the composite fluid-porous layer systems. In the physical vapor transport growth modeling, the Stefan flow model has been proposed based on the flow-kinetics theory for the vapor growth. In addition, perspectives for future studies on crystal growth modeling are proposed. (c) 2008 National Natural Science Foundation of China and Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier Limited and Science in China Press. All rights reserved.

Diffusion dominated process for the crystal growth of a binary alloy

The pure diffusion process has been often used to study the crystal growth of a binary alloy in the microgravity environment. In the present paper, a geometric parameter, the ratio of the maximum deviation distance of curved solidification and melting interfaces from the plane to the radius of the crystal rod, was adopted as a small parameter, and the analytical solution was obtained based on the perturbation theory. The radial segregation of a diffusion dominated process was obtained for cases of arbitrary Peclet number in a region of finite extension with both a curved solidification interface and a curved melting interface. Two types of boundary conditions at the melting interface were analyzed. Some special cases such as infinite extension in the longitudinal direction and special range of Peclet number were reduced from the general solution and discussed in detail.

A study on stratification of concentration in crystal-growth of alpha-liio3 by holographic-interferometry

A new thermoplastic-photoconductor laser holographic recording system has been used for real-time and in situ observation of alpha-LiIO3 crystal growth. The influence of crystallization-driven convection on the concentration stratification in solution has been studied under gravity field. It is found that the stratification is closely related to the seed orientation of alpha-LiIO3 crystal. When the optical axis of crystal seed C is parallel to the gravity vector g, the velocity of the concentration stratification is two times larger than that in the case of C perpendicular-to g. It needs 40 h for the crystalline system of alpha-LiIO3 to reach stable concentration distribution (expressed as tau) at 47.6-degrees-C. The time tau is not sensitive to the seed orientation. Our results provide valuable data for designing the crystal growth experiments ia space.

3D Finite Volume Scheme for Czochralski Crystal Growth

A general three-dimensional model is developed for simulation of the growth process of silicon single crystals by Czochralski technique. The numerical scheme is based on the curvilinear non-orthogonal finite volume discretization. Numerical solutions show that the flow and temperature fields in the melt are asymmetric and unsteady for 8’’ silicon growth. The effects of rotation of crystal on the flow structure are studied. The rotation of crystal forms the Ekman layer in which the temperature gradient along solid/melt surface is small.

3D Finite Volume Scheme for Czochralski Single Crystal Growth

Czochralski (Cz) technique, which is used for growing single crystals, has dominated the production of single crystals for electronic applications. The Cz growth process involves multiple phases, moving interface and three-dimensional behavior. Much has been done to study these phenomena by means of numerical methods as well as experimental observations. A three-dimensional curvilinear finite volume based algorithm has been developed to model the Cz process. A body-fitted transformation based approach is adopted in conjunction with a multizone adaptive grid generation (MAGG) technique to accurately handle the three-dimensional problems of phase-change in irregular geometries with free and moving surfaces. The multizone adaptive model is used to perform a three-dimensional simulation of the Cz growth of silicon single crystals.Since the phase change interface are irregular in shape and they move in response to the solution, accurate treatment of these interfaces is important from numerical accuracy point of view. The multizone adaptive grid generation (MAGG) is the appropriate scheme for this purpose. Another challenge encountered is the moving and periodic boundary conditions, which is essential to the numerical solution of the governing equations. Special treatments are implemented to impose the periodic boundary condition in a particular direction and to determine the internal boundary position and shape varying with the combination of ambient physicochemical transport process and interfacial dynamics. As indicated above that the applications and processes characterized by multi-phase, moving interfaces and irregular shape render the associated physical phenomena three-dimensional and unsteady. Therefore a generalized 3D model rather than a 2D simulation, in which the governing equations are solved in a general non-orthogonal coordinate system, is constructed to describe and capture the features of the growth process. All this has been implemented and validated by using it to model the low pressure Cz growth of silicon. Accuracy of this scheme is demonstrated by agreement of simulation data with available experimental data. Using the quasi-steady state approximation, it is shown that the flow and temperature fields in the melt under certain operating conditions become asymmetric and unsteady even in the absence of extrinsic sources of asymmetry. Asymmetry in the flow and temperature fields, caused by high shear initiated phenomena, affects the interface shape in the azimuthal direction thus results in the thermal stress distribution in the vicinity, which has serious implications from crystal quality point of view.