Attempt to correlate dislocations network and distribution to macroscale plane rotations in <001> cast-mono ingots

International audience; This work aims to contribute to the understanding of the mechanisms behind electricallyactive crystalline defect formation in cast-mono (cm) ingots grown along the axis. Boththe spatial distributions of background dislocations in the cellular dislocation array and the drivingforce for dislocation multiplication in the sub-grains are not perfectly understood. Macroscalelength crystal rotations are here characterized by the ($\theta$/2θ) X-ray diffraction (XRD) method atdifferent ingot heights and along two perpendicular sample axes. XRD measurements show thepresence of crystal rotations in the large single grain domain. Two orthogonal misorientationscomponents are found to evolve linearly along each sample axis forming plane orientationgradients up to (0.05&#177;0.02) degree/cm extending over 12 cm inside the cast-mono grain. (001)crystal structure deformation are also analysed by rocking curve imaging (RCI) using synchrotronradiation on wafers of a neighboring brick. First, results confirm the presence of the planeorientation gradient measured by XRD and its order of magnitude. Second, RCI resultsdemonstrate that the plane orientation gradient is associated to the cellular dislocation network.Therefore, these results strongly suggest that background dislocations network of a cellular formcan create an organized orientation gradient at large distance within the ingot. The involvementof the characterized orientation gradients in the formation and extension of electrically activeSGBs in cast-mono ingots is discussed.