CFD-PBM coupled simulation of silicon CVD growth in a fluidized bed reactor: Effect of silane pyrolysis kinetic models

The coupled numerical code of Eulerian-Granular model and population balance model was applied to simulate silane-derived silicon chemical vapor deposition growth in a three-dimensional fluidized bed reactor. Two silane homogenous kinetic models were used to obtain the gaseous concentration of silicon cluster for further calculation on cluster scavenging rate, and two heterogeneous kinetic models implemented to evaluate the rate of silane surface deposition. The applicability of silane pyrolysis kinetic models on gaseous species and silicon growth were analyzed in detail after the verification of fundamental flow behavior. The results showed that the growth rate agreed well with Hsu's experimental data under the combination kinetic models of Hogness's homogenous and Furusawa's heterogeneous ones, in which a complete silane decomposition was almost achieved, but the impractical growth result was obtained as inlet silane mole fraction higher than 0.5. Moreover, the interphase mass transfer of silane surface deposition and cluster scavenging was also focused, which showed that silane surface deposition tended to occur at the solid dense bottom region with higher mass transfer rate and cluster scavenging happened in almost the whole solid phase.