Abstract
A numerical simulation study was carried out to investigate the effect of thermo-solutal Marangoni convection occurring in the floating-zone (FZ) growth of an alloy of Silicon and Germanium under microgravity. The simulation results show that the flow structures in the molten zone become three-dimensional when the thermal Marangoni number is larger than the critical Marangoni number even though the applied temperature profile is axisymmetric. It was also found that the three-dimensionality of the solutal Marangoni convection may be responsible for the unstable growth observed in the experiment of Ref [10].
