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Vertical Bridgman Growth of Sapphire Crystals with Thin Neck Formation Process

Etuko Ohba 1,2Takumi Kobayashi 2Jun Yanagisawa 2Minami Shinozuka 2Chihiro Miyagawa 1,2Toshinori Taishi 1Keigo Hoshikawa 1

1. Shinshu University, 4-17-1 Wakasato, Nagano 380-8553, Japan
2. Fujikoshi Machinery Corp. (FMC), 1650 Kiyono Matsushiro-machi, Nagano 381-1233, Japan

Abstract

    A new technique is proposed, in which the thin neck formation process is adopted after the seeding process in the vertical Bridgman growth of sapphire crystals.

   The process stages of the new technique are shown in figure 1. The raw materials are put into a Mo or W crucible from above and a c-axis seed crystal is inserted in the seed well at the bottom of the crucible as shown in Fig.1 (a). The growth processes consists of first seeding, after melting of all raw material and a part of seed crystal, as shown in Fig1(b) and then, as the crucible is pulled down, formation of thin neck, as shown in Fig1(c), and growth of the crystal body, as shown in Fig1(d). After cooling to room temperature, it was found that the seed and the body grown could be easily separated and released from the crucible1).

   Samples cut from grown crystals were polished to mirror finish on both side and were characterized using a crossed polarizer and X-ray topography. It was confirmed that low angle grain boundaries generated at the periphery of seeding portion were eliminated at the thin neck and c-axis crystals free from low angle grain boundaries in the main body were successfully grown.

   We concluded that the proposed new technique incorporating a thin neck formation process in the vertical Bridgman growth method promises high potential in growth of large-size and high quality c-axis sapphire crystals with high reproducibility.

(1)   C. Miyagawa et.al: Demonstration of crack-free c-axis sapphire crystal growth using vertical Bridgman method, Journal of Crystal Growth. (in printing)

 

Auxiliary resources (full texts, presentations, posters, etc.)
  1. POSTER: Vertical Bridgman Growth of Sapphire Crystals with Thin Neck Formation Process, JPEG image data, JFIF standard 1.02, 0.1MB
 

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Related papers

Presentation: Poster at 17th International Conference on Crystal Growth and Epitaxy - ICCGE-17, General Session 2, by Keigo Hoshikawa
See On-line Journal of 17th International Conference on Crystal Growth and Epitaxy - ICCGE-17

Submitted: 2013-03-28 11:28
Revised:   2013-07-19 19:23