The crystal growth of ZnSe by the traveling heater method with the accelerated crucible rotation technique

• ZnSe single crystals with high crystalline quality were grown by THM with ACRT. • Using ACRT will regulate the convection in melt and enhance the solute transport. • Using ACRT will improve the shape of the growth interface in macro-scale. • PbCl 2 and ZnCl 2 inclusions were identified by EDS mapping. The accelerated crucible rotation technique (ACRT) was employed in the traveling heater method (THM) growth of ZnSe crystals to manage the convection in the melt. Considering the large solubility, the PbCl 2 was chosen as a solvent. During the growth, the growth interface changed from concave to slightly convex depending on the ACRT parameters. The ZnSe single crystals were obtained, when the ACRT with the maximum rotation of 15 rpm at the suitable growth rate (2.4 mm/day) was used. Furthermore, the chemical mappings of the energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) show that there are two kinds of the solvent inclusions existed in the grown ZnSe crystals, i.e. PbCl 2 and ZnCl 2 . And the PbCl 2 inclusions are homogeneous with a total concentration of 7.03 × 10 2 cm −2 . In addition, the FWHM on X-ray rocking curve of the (2 2 0) diffraction planes is 22 arcsec. The chemical etch pit density on the (1 1 0) cleavage plane is (1–2) × 10 5 cm −2 and the average infrared transmittance is over 68% in the range from 650 cm −1 to 4000 cm −1 . All of these indicate that the grown ZnSe single crystals have good crystalline quality.