Fundamentals of melt growth

Melt growth is the most important growth method for the production of bulk single crystals of semiconductors, oxides, metals and other materials. Its technology can only be understood or improved by a profound knowledge of the underlying fundamentals, like phase diagrams, growth kinetics, heat and species transport. This article treats relevant aspects of these fundamentals in close correlation to the most important melt growth processes, the Czochralski and Gradient Freeze (Bridgman) methods.