Control of the critical supercooling in LPE Article uri icon

abstract

  • We have investigated and developed a method to control the critical supercooling (ΔTcr), which can be applied to the growth of crystals from solutions and, specifically, to LPE. The radius of the critical crystal nucleus and therefore the magnitude of the critical supercooling depend on the interface tension between the liquid and solid phases. Hence, the critical supercooling could be controlled if it were possible to change the composition of the liquid phase, without affecting the composition of the growing crystal. This can be done by adding to the liquid phase an element with a small segregation coefficient. In this article, we analyze the segregation coefficients of the elements forming the III-V compounds (except B and N) and show that In and Sb are the most suitable elements for this purpose. It is shown experimentally, that introducing Sb into the liquid phase, the critical supercooling of an In-P solution can be increased 1.5-2 times.

publication date

  • 2000-01-01