The advanced automated directional solidification furnace (AADSF) is a five zone tubular furnace disigned for Bridgeman-Stockbarger and other techniques of crystal growth involving multiple temperature zones such as vapor transport experiments and other materials science experiments. The five zones are primarily designed to produce uniform hot and cold temperature regions separated by an adiabatic region constructed of a heat extraction plate and an insert to reduce radiation from the hot to cold zone. The hot and cold zone temperatures are designed to reach 1600 deg C and 1100 deg C respectively. AASDF operates on multi-purpose experiment support structure (MPESS) within the cargo bay of the space shuttle on the United States microgravity payload (USMP) missions. Two successful flights, both employing the directional solidification of Bridgeman-Stockbarger technique for crystal growth have been made, and crystals of HgCdTe and PbSnTe grown in microgravity have been produced on USMP-2 and USMP-3 respectively. The addition of a sample exchange mechanism (SEM) will enable three different samples to be processed on future flights including USMP-4 mission.
The advanced automated directional solidification furnace
Ein automatisierter Ofen zur Untersuchung der gerichteten Erstarrung im Weltall
1996
7 Seiten, 5 Bilder, 2 Tabellen, 2 Quellen
Aufsatz (Konferenz)
Englisch