Thermodynamic heat transfer and mass transport modeling of the sublimation growth of silicon carbide crystals

The deposition of single SiC crystals has been processed inside a sealed enclosure at temperatures above 2300 K and pressures lower than 5 . 10(3) Pa by the modified Lely method. The purpose of this work is to examine the potentialities of different macroscopic models, thermodynamics, heat, and mass transfers on the simulation of the growth of such crystals with a special emphasis on their coupling mechanism. Thermodynamic modeling has been used to determine the most important reactive species involved in equilibrium conditions. Induction heating modeling has allowed the calculation of the actual temperatures inside the reactor which are not well known because of the difficulty associated with their measurements. Finally, mass transport modeling provided the calculated deposition rate. It was found that the calculated growth rates were close to the experimental ones which may indicate a good representation of the actual phenomena involved in the crucible. As a matter of fact each of the proposed models has contributed to a better knowledge of the process.