Modeling effects of solute concentration in Bridgman growth of cadmium zinc telluride

• We model the solutal effect in Bridgman growth of CdZnTe crystals.
• Numerical results are compared to experimental data taken from literature.
• Solutal damping of the melt convection explains significant radial segregation of zinc in crystals.
• Crystallization front can be destabilized if the growth occurs at a high rate in low temperature gradient.
• Anomalous segregation is due to incomplete charge mixing during the homogenization time.

Numerical modeling is used to investigate the effect of solute concentration on the melt convection and interface shape in Bridgman growth of Cd1−xZnxTeCd1−xZnxTe (CZT). The numerical analysis is compared to experimental growth in cylindrical ampoules having a conical tip performed by Komar et al. (2001) [15]. In these experiments, the solidification process occurs at slow growth rate (V=2⋅10−7m/s) in a thermal field characterized by a vertical gradient GT=20K/cm at the growth interface. The computations performed by accounting the solutal effect show a progressive damping of the melt convection due to the depleted Zn at the growth interface. The computed shape of the crystallization front is in agreement with the experimental measurement showing a convex-concave shape for the growth through the conical part of the ampoule and a concave shape of the interface in the cylindrical region. The distribution of Zn is nearly uniform over the crystal length except for the end part of the ingots. The anomalous zinc segregation observed in some experiments is explained by introducing the hypothesis of incomplete charge mixing during the homogenization time which precedes the growth process. When the crystallization is started in ampoules having a very sharp conical tip, the heavy CdTe is accumulated at the bottom part of the melt, giving rise to anomalous segregation patterns, featuring very low zinc concentration in the ingots during the first stage of the solidification.