Analysis of melt flows and remelting phenomena through numerical simulations during the kyropoulos sapphire single crystal growth

Abstract

Sapphire wafers are used as an important substrate for the production of blue LED (light emitting diode) and the LED's performance largely depends on the quality of the sapphire single crystals. There are several crystal growth methods for sapphire crystals and Kyropoulos method is an efficient way to grow large diameter and high-quality sapphire single crystals with low dislocation density. During Kyropoulos growth, the convection of molten melt is largely influenced by the hot zone geometry such as crucible shape, heater and refractory arrangements. In this study, CFD (computational fluid dynamics) simulations were performed according to the bottom/side ratios (per unit of the crucible surface area) of heaters. And, based on the results of analysis, the molten alumina flows and remelting phenomena were analyzed.