Cellular automaton modeling of the transition of multi-crystalline silicon from a planar faceted front to equiaxed growth

Abstract

A modeling approach combining the lattice Boltzmann (LB) method and the cellular automaton (CA) technique are developed to simulate the faceted front to equiaxed structure transition (FET) of directional solidification of multi-crystalline silicon. The LB method is used for the coupled calculation of velocity, temperature and solute content field, while the CA method is used to compute the nucleation at the silicon-crucible interface and on SiC particles, as well as the mechanism of growth and capturing. For silicon, the interface kinetic coefficient is rather low, which means that the kinetic undercooling can be large. A strong anisotropy in the surface tension and interfacial kinetics are considered in the model. A faceted front in conjunction with a sufficiently high carbon content can lead to equiaxed growth by nucleation on SiC. The temperature gradient in Si melt at the interface is negative, which leads to the occurrence of a faceted interface. The higher the absolute value of thermal gradients, the faster the growth velocity. Due to differences in the degree of undercooling, there will be the unification of facets in front of the solid-liquid interface. Transitions from faceted front to thermal equiaxed dendrites or faceted equiaxed grains are observed with smaller or larger impurity contents, respectively.