Abstract

The dependence of the mass flux on the source material pretreatment, on the source temperature, and on the temperature difference between the source and transport product have been systematically investigated. Procedures have been developed yielding source materials of composition near that of the "congruently vaporizing" phase of CdTe. With this material, mass fluxes at moderate temperatures are observed which are up to about an order of magnitude larger than the highest reported in the literature for comparable conditions. Minute deviations from the "stoichiometric" composition reduce the mass flux by orders of magnitude. The experimental results are compared with theoretically predicted mass fluxes based on a diffusion limited transport process, and with other possible limitations reported in the literature. The high mass fluxes observed in this work at relatively low temperatures enable the vapor growth of large CdTe single crystals under conditions of practical importance.

¹ Present address: NASA, Marshall Space Flight Center, ES75, Huntsville, Alabama 35812, USA.