Pulling-down apparatus and container therefor

A container for containing a melting pot having a narrow hole at the bottom side thereof, an induction heating device, arranged around the melting pot, for heating the melting pot, and a seed-holding device, extending vertically, for holding at the top end thereof a seed that contacts a melt material that flows out through the narrow hole and determines an crystal orientation for the melt material, and enabling air in the inner space thereof to be discharged, the container comprising:

• a vacuum chamber, having a plurality of observation windows through which a solid-liquid interface where the melt material is crystallized can be observed from different directions, for configuring an inner wall that is spaced a predetermined distance apart from the melting pot as an approximate center;
• a vacuum bellows, for containing part of the seed-holding device, that is vertically expandable and contractible and has an approximately cylindrical shape, and whose top end is coupled with the vacuum chamber, at a place that is situated below and coaxially with the melting pot;
• and
• a driving mechanism, having a closing plane that closes the bottom side of the vacuum bellows, for supporting the seed-holding device at the bottom end of the seed-holding device and enabling the bottom end of the seed-holding device to be driven in different directions on a approximately horizontal plane, wherein
• with respect to the center axis of the melting pot, the respective directions in which the observation windows are formed are perpendicular on an approximately horizontal plane to the driving directions in which the bottom end of the seed-holding device is driven on the approximately horizontal plane.