The physical vapor transport (PVT) method is used to grow silicon carbide (SiC) crystals, which are difficult to be grown by other methods. In this paper, a field-coordination theory is involved to optimize the SiC PVT growth process. By using a finite volume-based computational method, we calculate the flow field as well as species concentration field before and after improvement of the thermal design, respectively. The shape of the SiC crystal grown using the improved thermal design is also shown. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.