Growth Angle and Melt Meniscus of the RF-heated Floating Zone in Silicon Crystal Growth

TL;DR

This paper measures the growth angle in RF-heated silicon crystal growth and models the melt meniscus considering electromagnetic effects, validating the model with experimental data.

Contribution

It provides the first direct measurement of the growth angle and incorporates electromagnetic pressure into the melt surface modeling for silicon crystal growth.

Findings

Measured growth angle as 11° ± 2°

Model including electromagnetic pressure matches experimental melt surface

Validated the importance of growth angle in melt surface modeling

Abstract

This article presents a direct measurement of the growth angle during the growth of a cylindrical 2" silicon crystal using a radio-frequency heated floating zone process. From the high-resolution pictures taken during the process, this growth angle was evaluated to be 11{\deg}{\pm}2{\deg}. Furthermore, the free surface of the melt was modeled using the Laplace-Young equation. This model has to include the electromagnetic pressure calculated by the surface ring currents approximation. The results were compared to the experimental free surface derived from video frames. It could be shown that the calculated free surface will only fit the experimentally determined one if the right growth angle is considered.