Study of floating zone profiles in materials grown by the laser‐heated pedestal growth technique under isostatic atmosphere

Abstract

The analysis of the melt profile in floating zone techniques has been made in the past years by raising differential equations in terms of Cartesian coordinates and numerically looking for its solution. Although this method permits to establish quite good approximations to the real melt profile, the solutions are deficient in the prediction of new information that can be related to the thermophysical properties of most materials. We investigated the applicability of a different approach that starting from a novel differential equation permits its fitting to the profile of a real situation and also the determination of some important growth parameters like the range of shape stability. Results concerning melt profiles of materials grown under controlled atmosphere are reported.