Homogeneous InGaSb crystal grown under microgravity using Chinese recovery satellite SJ-10

Jianding Yu; Yuko Inatomi; Velu Nirmal Kumar; Yasuhiro Hayakawa; Yasunori Okano; Mukannan Arivanandhan; Yoshimi Momose; Xiuhong Pan; Yan Liu; Xingwang Zhang; Xinghong Luo

doi:10.1038/s41526-019-0068-1

Homogeneous InGaSb crystal grown under microgravity using Chinese recovery satellite SJ-10

NPJ Microgravity. 2019 Apr 1:5:8. doi: 10.1038/s41526-019-0068-1. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Jianding Yu^#^{1

2}, Yuko Inatomi^#^{3

4

5}, Velu Nirmal Kumar^#³, Yasuhiro Hayakawa^#⁵, Yasunori Okano^#^{5

6}, Mukannan Arivanandhan⁷, Yoshimi Momose⁵, Xiuhong Pan¹, Yan Liu¹, Xingwang Zhang^{2

8}, Xinghong Luo⁹

Affiliations

¹ 1State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1295 Dingxi Road, Shanghai, 200050 PR China.
² 2Centre of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049 PR China.
³ 3Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, 3-1-1 Yoshinodai, Chuo-ku, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 252-5210 Japan.
⁴ 4School of Physical Sciences, SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), 3-1-1 Yoshinodai, Chuo-ku, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 252-5210 Japan.
⁵ 5Research Institute of Electronics, Shizuoka University, Johoku 3-5-1, Naka-ku, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka 432-8011 Japan.
⁶ 6Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University, 1-3 Machikaneyama, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-8531 Japan.
⁷ 7Centre for Nanoscience and Technology, Anna University, Chennai, 600025 Tamil Nadu India.
⁸ 8Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. A35, Qinghua East Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100083 PR China.
⁹ 9Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 72 Wenhua Road, Shenyang, Liaoning 110016 PR China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Microgravity crystal growth experiment for the growth of In_0.11Ga_0.89Sb was performed at the Chinese recoverable satellite through the space program SJ-10. This experiment is aimed to understand the melt formation and growth kinetics of In _x Ga_1-x Sb solid solution with higher indium composition, because their segregation coefficient was higher than the crystals with lower indium compositions. The target composition and uniformity were achieved with higher growth rate under microgravity, whereas the uniformity in composition was not achieved under normal gravity. The growth and dissolution were affected mainly by the steady state equilibrium in the melt composition because of the convection under normal gravity. The non-steady state equilibrium in the melt composition under microgravity helped to achieve a higher growth rate and compositional homogeneity at higher indium composition of In _x Ga_1-x Sb solid solution.