The invention provides a multi-pot melt growth technique for growing
sapphire crystals, comprising: (1) pretreating aluminum
oxide raw material; (2) placing the pretreated aluminum
oxide blocks and the oriented seed crystals into pots and moving into high temperature descending furnace, sealing the whole
system and power-on to raise temperature, starting mechanical pump and
diffusion pump in turn, vacuumizing to 10-3-10-4Pa, and when the
furnace temperature up to 1500-1800deg.C, charging
inert gas and continuing raising temperature to the set temperature (2100-2250deg.C); (3) when the
furnace temperature up to the set temperature, preserving heat for 4-8 hours, regulating
hearth temperature and pot positions to smelt
raw material and
seed crystal top to implement
inoculation growth and setting
solid-
liquid interface temperature gradient at 10-50deg.C / cm and controlling pot descending rate at 0.1-3.0mm / h; and (4) after the
crystal growth ends, making in-situ annealing treatment. And the process has features of
raw material pretreatment, special temperature field design, multi-pot technique, in-situ annealing treatment, etc, and advantages of stable temperature field, adjustable
temperature gradient, operating convenience, low average
energy consumption,
high yielding by one furnace, and beneficial to industrialized production.