Thermocapillary Flow And Convection Control By Magnetic Field In Liquid Bridge Under Microgravity

The floating zone technique is a containerless method for the growth of high-quality single crystal growth. The microgravity condition makes it possible for floating zone technique to grow larger and high-quality crystal because the hydrostatic pressure and buoyancy are reduced greatly. Thermocapillary flow, which is caused by the unbalanced surface tension generated by temperature gradient along free surface, was proven to play an important role in the floating zone, and therefore the quality of grown crystal. For better understanding the convection, a half-zone liguid bridge, which is a typical simplified model and widely used for investigating thermocapillry flow in floating zone, is adopted. The thermocapilly flow in liquid bridge under microgravity and its convection control by magnetic filed is simulated numerically by using finite volume method in the paper.Thermocapillary flow of the semiconductor melt in liquid bridge is steady and axisymmetric with small Reynolds number (Re), and it becomes steady and three dimensional after the first instability (Rec1