Comparative numerical study of the effects of rotating and travelling magnetic fields on the interface shape and thermal stress in the VGF growth of InP crystals

The influence of rotating magnetic fields (RMF) and travelling magnetic fields (TMF) on the growth of 2 in InP crystal by the vertical gradient freeze (VGF) method is studied by numerical simulation. Both types of magnetic field were investigated for a realistic VGF configuration with respect to the bending of the solid/liquid interface, resulting in thermoelastic stress and stability of the flow regime in the InP melt. The results of the simulations show clearly that the use of TMFs offers in contrary to RMFs a significant improvement with respect to the bending of the s/l interface as well as the resulting thermoelastic stress in the growing InP crystal. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.