Workflow for Design of Experiments‐Based Modeling of Species Transport and Growth Kinetics in GaN Hydride Vapor Phase Epitaxy

Knowledge about the behavior of complex systems and its prediction by modelling is a crucial point in many problems in science and technology. Design of experiments (DoE) is a well‐established tool for investigation of the parameter space and development of appropriate models of such systems. Although DoE reduces the number of required experiments enormously, the remaining number of experiments can be still unfeasible in many real‐world applications, i.e., when a single experiment is too time‐consuming or expensive. This paper proposes a workflow for investigating hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) for growing of GaN bulk crystals. The suggested workflow is based on DoE and physical simulations of mass transport processes and crystal growth kinetics as an intermediate step between DoE and experiments. Considering the high complexity of real HVPE systems, this study is first focused on the impact of the individual gas flows in the reactor, their compositions, inlet velocities and relations on the growth rate. Possible correlations in the simulated data are investigated using a phenomenological metamodel describing the response of the system on the variation of process parameters and discussed in detail. The presented results can be considered as a step towards a digital twin of the HVPE growth process and can be used for the improvement of crystal quality and the process efficiency in terms of precursor, energy and time consumption.