Silicon (n~3.4) and germanium (n~4.0) are harmless and conventional infrared optical materials. SiGe alloys, mixed crystals of Si and Ge, permit a flexible Si/Ge ratio in the crystals, which results in a refractive-index gradient. We report on the Travelling Liquidus-Zone (TLZ) method for growing both gradient and homogeneous concentration SiGe crystals. The wavelength dependences of the refractive indices from 2.0 to 20 μm of the 20 mm diameter Si1-XGeX (x=0.32 and 0.63), Si and Ge disks were measured using an ellipsometry. An infrared lens system made of germanium and homogeneous concentration SiGe crystals has been designed.
Containerless solidification of BiFeO3 oxide has been carried out under microgravity with Electrostatic Levitation Furnace (ELF) aboard on the sounding rocket (TR-IA). It is a first containerless experiment using ELF under microgravity for studying the solidification of oxide insulator material. Spherical BiFeO3 sample with diameter of 5mm was heated by two lasers in oxygen and nitrogen mixing atmosphere, and the sample position by electrostatic force under pinpoint model and free drift model. In order to compare the solidification behavior in microgravity with on ground, solidification experiments of BiFeO3 in crucible and drop tube were carried out.
In crucible experiment, it was very difficult to get single BiFeO3 phase, because segregation of Fe2O3 occured very fast and easily. In drop tube experiment, fine homogeneous BiFeO3 microstructure was obtained in a droplet about 300 μm. It implies that containerless processing can promote the phase selection in solidification. In microgravity experiment, because the heating temperature was lower than that of estimated, the sample was heated into Fe2O3+liquid phase region. Fe2O3 single crystal grew on the surface of the spherical sample, whose sample was clearly different from that observed in ground experiments.
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