Shape of menisci in terrestrial dewetted Bridgman growth

Dewetted Bridgman is a crystal growth technique in which the crystal is detached from the crucible wall by a liquid free surface at the level of the solid-liquid interface, called liquid meniscus, which creates a gap between the crystal and the ampoule. Dewetting phenomenon was first obtained spontaneously in spatial experiments during the Bridgman solidification, and opened the possibility of reproducing experiments on the earth--obtained by applying a gas pressure difference Delta P=P cold-P hot between the cold and the hot sides of the sample. In order to understand the process which leads to a crystal with a constant radius on the ground, analytical and numerical studies of axisymmetric meniscus shapes are made and the dependence of the meniscus shape on the pressure difference is established. For this aim, starting from the Young-Laplace equation of a capillary surface in equilibrium in the presence of gas pressure, a mathematical model able to describe the meniscus surface z=z(r) and the angle theta=theta(r) between the tangent to the meniscus and the horizontal axis is presented. On the basis of this model, inequalities of the pressure intervals for which dewetting is feasible are established. Numerical results are performed for InSb crystals.