Convection effects on crystallinity in the growth of In0.3Ga0.7 as crystals by the traveling liquidus zone method.

The influence of convection in a melt on the crystallinity of the TLZ-grown In(0.3)Ga(0.7)As crystals has been investigated by growing crystals with various shapes and dimensions on the ground. No single crystals have been grown when the crystal diameter was 10 mm, but we were successful in growing single crystals by reducing crystal diameter to 2 mm. These results suggested the importance of suppressing convection in the melt during alloy crystal growth because constitutional supercooling tends to occur at the freezing interface or ahead of the interface by the segregation effect. Large area is required for substrate use in various applications. This requirement can be fulfilled by the crystal growth in microgravity because density difference-induced convection is suppressed in microgravity. Another means for suppressing convection without deteriorating area is plate-shape crystal growth with reduced thickness. The latter can be applied on the ground and we succeeded in growing single crystals of plate-shaped In(0.3)Ga(0.7)As by the traveling liquidus zone (TLZ) method. Dimensions of obtained single crystals were 10 mm in width and 2 mm in thickness and lengths ranged from 20 to 40 mm. Compositional uniformity was good and 0.3 +/- 0.02 in InAs mole fraction was achieved.