Rapid crystallization of levitated and undercooled semiconducting material melts

Using a CO ₂ laser-equipped electromagnetic levitator, we carried out the containerless crystallization of Si and Ge. From the point of interface morphologies, the relation between growth velocities and undercoolings was classified into three regions. In regions I and II, although the morphologies of growing crystals are different: plate-like needle crystals in region I and facetted dendrite at region II, the growth velocities in these two regions are fundamentally scaled by the thermal diffusivities and the temperature increase caused by the release of the latent heat. This result means that the growth velocity can be expressed by the product of the thermal diffusivity and the growth kinetics. An analysis of the dendrite morphologies revealed that the kinetics of crystal growth in regions I and II represent two-dimensional nucleation at the reentrant corner formed at the edge of the two parallel twins. In region III, thermal diffusion-controlled interface attachment kinetics control as described by a modified Wilson-Frenkel model.