Modeling and design of an advanced high pressure system for III-V compound synthesis and crystal growth

Indium Phosphide (InP) is an important substrate material for opto-electronics and light-wave communications. In many applications InP-based devices are found to be superior in performance than GaAs, Ge or Si based devices. However, its broad use has been limited because of the quality and cost of commercially available substrates. The primary objective of this research is to design and develop an advanced high pressure system to implement the novel technique of “one-step” in-situ synthesis and growth of InP crystals. Detailed numerical modeling and engineering analysis/design is performed to examine the critical issues associated with the growth of large diameter (up to 150 mm) III-V compound crystals. After design and fabrication, experimental work on conducted for InP synthesis. The research indicates that multiple hotzones are needed to reduce the thermal stresses in as-grown crystals. The hotzone insulation package should be strategically designed to allow more heat loss in the axial direction; a water-cooled shaft can help to accomplish this. To reduce gas convection, empty spaces should be minimized. To obtain uniform temperature and dopant distributions, a moderate rotation rate may be appropriate in the proposed configurations; higher rotation rates may cause the flow to become unsteady and turbulent. It may be desirable to use slightly higher rotation rates in the beginning and lower towards the end of growth. The modeling study also supports the use of a magnetic field to suppress flow oscillations and to control interface shape. Several innovations are proposed in the new design. The most significant are the independently-controlled injection system with its unique ball valve and multi-component arrangement that allows flexibility not seen in other high pressure systems, and a multi-span high-resolution weight monitoring system for crucible and crystal/injector.; Experiments are conducted to study the effect of pressure, the thermal profiling, and the synthesis of InP. For the first time quantitative analysis is available on the effect of pressure on power consumption in the system. The thermal profiling indicates the presence of low temperature gradients in the system. The experimental program led to several successful runs for polycrystalline InP synthesis.