2018, Vol.28, No.4

Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.19

pISSN : 1225-1429 / eISSN : 2234-5078
https://journal.kci.go.kr/jkcgct

Solar energy has attracted big attentions as one of clean and unlimited renewable energy. Solar energy is transformed to electrical energy by solar cells which are comprised of multi-silicon wafer or mono-silicon wafer. Monosilicon wafers are fabricated from the Czochralski method. In order to decrease fabrication cost, increasing a poly-silicon charge size in one quartz crucible has been developed very much. When we increase a charge size, the temperature control of a Czochralski equipment becomes more difficult due to a strong melt convection. In this study, we simulated a Czochralski equipment temperature at 20 inch and 24 inch in quartz crucible diameter and various charge sizes (90 kg, 120 kg, 150 kg, 200 kg, 250 kg). The simulated temperature profiles are compared with real temperature profiles and analyzed. It turns out that the simulated temperature profiles and real temperature profiles are in good agreement. We can use a simulated profile for the optimization of real temperature profile in the case of increasing charge sizes.

A large single crystal of AlN was grown by PVT (Physical Vapor Transport) method. The AlN crystal shaped hexagonal of the diameter of about 46 mm and the thickness of 7.6 mm was grown using 33 mm seed crystal which was grown and made by ourselves. We tried to find out repeatable growth possibility for AlN crystal growth and then to evaluate the repeatability of the growth condition of the temperature of 1950~2100oC and the ambient pressure of 0.1~1 atm.

PVT (Physical Vapor Transport) method has advantages in producing high quality, large scale wafers where many researches are being carried out to commercialize nitride semiconductors. However, complex process variables cause various defects when it had non-equilibrium growth conditions. Annealing process after crystal growth has been widely used to enhance the crystallinity. It is important to set appropriate temperature, pressure, and annealing time to improve crystallinity effectively. In this study, the effect of the annealing conditions on the crystalline structure variation of the AlN single crystal grown by PVT method was investigated with synchrotron whitebeam X-ray topography, electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD), and Rietveld refinement. X-ray topography analysis showed secondary phases, sub-grains, impurities including carbon inclusion in the single crystal before annealing. EBSD analyses identified that sub-grains with slightly tilted basal plane appeared and the overall number of grains increased after the annealing process. Rietveld refinement showed that the stress caused by the temperature gradient during the annealing process between top and bottom in the hot zone not only causes distortion of grains but also changes the lattice constant.