CONVECTION MODEL FOR GROWTH AND DISSOLUTION OF TERNARY ALLOYS BY LIQUID-PHASE EPITAXY

A computational model is developed to investigate the effect of natura l convection on the dissolution and growth processes of liquid phase e pitaxy of ternary semiconductor alloys, This model, for the first time , accounts for diffusive and convective mass transport in the liquid p hase, mass diffusion in the solid phase, and phase equilibrium and mas s conservation at the moving liquid-solid interfaces. Numerical simula tions are carried out for a horizontal sandwich LPE system used for gr owth of GaxIn1-xAs by a temperature modulation technique. The simulati on results show that solutal convection plays an important role in LPE growth, It enhances growth rate of the upper substrate during the coo ling of the solution and gives rise to faster dissolution rate of the lower substrate during the heating of the solution, Natural convection was also found influencing compositional uniformity of the grown crys tals.