Project description
Improved models for crystal growth processes
Crystal materials have underpinned technological progress – from the first transistors to quantum computers. However, crystal growth processes remain highly complex as they involve various physical phenomena. Lack of direct measurements within the crystal growing environments limits the accuracy of the underlying theoretical models. As a result, experimental trial-and-error approaches still dominate crystal growth development. This could change in the future through the work that will be conducted by the EU-funded NEMOCRYS project. NEMOCRYS is dedicated to the development of a new experimental platform (‘MultiValidator’) that will include a unique crystal growing facility for model materials. These new multiphysical models are expected to change the paradigm of observing, describing, and developing crystal growth processes and similar complex multiphysics systems.
Objective
Crystalline materials are indispensable for the contemporary world and silicon crystals in particular have enabled the technological progress from first transistors to quantum computers. Such crystals are produced in high-temperature processes with a permanent demand to improve both material quality and efficiency of mass production. The high complexity of the growth processes involving various physical phenomena from electromagnetism to fluid dynamics as well as the limited possibilities of direct measurements make process optimization very challenging. Numerical simulation is often used, but due to limited accuracy of the models, experimental trial-and-error still dominates in practice as I have directly experienced while developing crystal growth methods both on research and industrial scales for more than a decade. There is a series of fundamental assumptions in multiphysical models that have been used for many crystal growth processes of various materials but have never been thoroughly validated. I propose to build a general experimental platform (MultiValidator) to address these challenges and, for the first time, to consider the complete physical complexity of a real growth process. A unique crystal growth setup will be developed for a model material (e.g. Ga) to enable low working temperatures, relaxed vacuum-sealing requirements and easy experimental access for various measurement techniques simultaneously (e.g. flow velocity and thermal stress fields). In this way, a new level of physical understanding and a new generation of multiphysical models for crystal growth processes will be established. The following paradigm change in the way how we observe, describe and develop crystal growth processes and similar complex multiphysical systems will minimize the necessary experimental cycles and open new horizons for a scientific analysis as well as for smart process control, for example, within the Industry 4.0 initiative.
Fields of science
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Funding Scheme
ERC-STG - Starting GrantHost institution
12489 Berlin
Germany