Mechanically Induced Nucleation Improves Crystalline Quality During Melt Growth of Semiconductors

For certain semiconductors with important applications, the existing bulk crystal growth technique from the melt usually results in poor-quality multi-crystalline ingots that cause the typically low yield of the commercial growth process. The low-quality, multi-grained crystal growth is mainly caused by the large supercool of the melt, which prohibits the ideal growth condition that a small, single-crystal nucleus forms at the very tip and grows into a large single crystal. For instance, semi-insulating cadmium zinc telluride (CdZnTe) crystal is a highly promising material for room-temperature x-ray and gamma ray detectors. However, the major hurdle in using the CdZnTe crystals is its cost. The ability to pack many data acquisition channels (hundreds) with the stopping power for high-energy radiation requires large single crystals of CdZnTe.