Growing indium antimonide single crystals with a diameter of 100 mm by the modified Chochralsky method

At present, all over the world there is a tendency to increase the diameters of single crystals of both elementary semiconductors and semiconductor compounds. There are reports indicating the use of single crystals of III-V semiconductors with a diameter of four to six inches. So far, indium antimonide single crystals up to 75 mm in diameter have been obtained in Russia.
Indium antimonide is the element base of the broadest field of solid-state electronics — optoelectronics. On its basis, linear and matrix photodetectors are manufactured, operating in the spectral wavelength range of 3-5 microns, which are used as a viewing element in thermal imaging systems.
In this work, we selected the thermal growth conditions and obtained indium antimonide single crystals 100 mm in diameter in the crystallographic direction [100]. The solution of this problem has made it possible to significantly increase the yield of suitable photodetectors.
Single crystals 100 mm in diameter were grown by the Czochralski method in a two-stage process. The design of the graphite heating unit was enlarged and matched to a working crucible with a diameter of 150 millimeters and a load of 4.5-5 kg.
The Van der Pauw method was used to measure the electrical properties of the obtained single crystals, which corresponded to the standard parameters of undoped indium antimonide. Using an optical microscope, the etching pits were counted using the 9-field method. The dislocation density in crystals with a diameter of 100 mm was ≤ 100 cm^-2 and corresponded to the values ​for crystals of 50 mm.

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