The growth of single crystals by the self-seeding technique

A self-seeding technique suitable for growing large single crystals of low-heat-conductivity materials from the melt is developed using industrially important CdTe and Cd1-xZnxTe crystals as an example. A method of controlling crystal composition by maintaining an "undersaturation" excessive partial pressure of a higher-volatility component over the melt, which was developed for preparing semiconductor materials, is applied to Cd-containing compounds for the first time. With these modifications, rather perfect large CdTe and Cd1-xZnxTe single crystals are grown by the Obreimov-Shubnikov (gradient freeze) method. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.