Crystal Growth of Sapphire for GaN Substrates

Sapphire crystals were grown by Horizontal Bridgman method. The effects of sliding rate (growth rate) of Molybdenum container, growth atmosphere, temperature gradient and orientation of see on crystal qualities were investigated. The size of the crystals grown was up to 150-200 mm in length, 90 mm in width and 25-35 mm in thickness. Crystals grown under the optimum conditions were colorless, transparent and could not be observed and macroscopic defects, such as bubbles, cracks, twins and mosaic structure. With the grown crystals, prototypes of sapphire substrate for blue wafers were characterized. As a result, we can get hight quality of sapphire wafers with c-axis, 1.5 inches in diameters and 0.33 mm in thickess.