Modeling Heat Transfer During Sublimation Growth of Silicon Carbide Single Crystals by Physical Vapor Transport

Numerical simulation has been very useful in predicting the temperature distribution and subsequent growth kinetics in various vapor growth processes and can augment difficult or inadequate in situ measurements. Multidimensional models of silicon carbide (SiC) sublimation growth systems of varying levels of complexity have been developed to aid in the design, manufacture, and optimization of these growth systems. Since it is well known that SiC defect density and growth rate are strongly influenced by temperature distribution, an accurate assessment of this temperature distribution is required. In this work we present a heat transfer model accounting for conduction, radiation, and radio frequency induction heating to investigate numerically the temperature distribution within an axisymmetric apparatus during sublimation growth of SiC bulk single crystals by vapor transport (modified Lely method). Here, the evolution of the magnetic potential vectors and temperature distribution is studied during the heating process and, where feasible, compared with existing numerical experiments found within the literature.