|
A transient three-dimensional numerical simulation was carried out in the present study to investigate the flow and thermal characteristics in a model vertical single-wafer chemical vapor deposition reactor without considering the chemical reactions. The commercial software CFX4.2 was adopted to solve the governing flow equations. Attention was focused on the effects of the flow inertia and buoyancy due to the temperature nonuniformity along with the showerhead and geometry of the gas inlet pipe on the resulting flow pattern in the reaction chamber. The predicted results for the ideal case with a uniform gas flow at the inlet of the reaction chamber indicate that the buoyancy can induce an exisymmetric circular vortex roll near the dege of the wafer in the early transient. The vortex roll grows quickly in intensity and size. For a raise in the buoyancy-to-inertia ratio the flow becomes nonaxisymmetric. Moreover, the mixing chamber and showerhead were found to exert profound influences on the vortes flow pattern. When the gas enters the reaction chamber through a single straight circular pipe, the entraining effects of the high speed gas jet result in a large but weak circular vortex roll outside the jet. Besides, the buoyancy can induce strong vortex rolls which prevail in the reaction chamber. An increase in the buoyancy-to-intertia ratio in a higher vortex intensity and multiple asymmmetric flow recirculations may appear. Finally, it was noted that the bending of the inlet pipe cause some flow asymmetry.
|