Casting Single Crystal Silicon: Novel Defect Profiles from BP Solar's Mono&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;sup&gt; TM &lt;/sup&gt;Wafers

Stoddard, Nathan; Wu, Bo; Witting, Ian T.; Wagener, M.; Park, Yongkook; Rozgonyi, G. A.; Clark, Roger

doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/ssp.131-133.1

Cited by 143 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…One way of reducing wafer cost has been to use cheaper silicon ingots, such as multi-crystalline silicon, although it is of relatively low quality. R&D is increasingly dependent on higher quality multi-crystalline silicon [11,12], such as mono-like silicon technology [12]. In this technology, single crystalline silicon seeds are used in to fabricate multi-crystalline silicon.…”

Section: High Quality and Low-cost Silicon Ingotsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent progress in crystalline silicon solar cells

Tanaka

2013

IEICE Electron. Express

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Section: High Quality and Low-cost Silicon Ingotsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent progress in crystalline silicon solar cells

Tanaka

2013

IEICE Electron. Express

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“…[7,8] To reduce the cost to the level of mc-Si while keeping the higher performance of sc-Si, a new type of silicon casting method has been proposed in the last decade, called quasi-mono silicon (QM-Si). [9] QM-Si is a casting method which utilizes a single crystalline seeding layer to yield a single crystalline ingot.…”

Section: Doi: 101002/aelm201600435mentioning

confidence: 99%

Electronic Quality Improvement of Highly Defective Quasi‐Mono Silicon Material by Phosphorus Diffusion Gettering

Liu

Vähänissi

Laine

et al. 2017

Adv Elect Materials

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Quasi‐mono silicon (QM‐Si) attracts interest as a substrate material for silicon device processing with the promise to yield single‐crystalline silicon quality with multicrystalline silicon cost. A significant barrier to widespread implementation of QM‐Si is ingot edge‐contamination caused by the seed material and crucible walls during crystal growth. This work aims to recover the scrap material in QM‐Si manufacturing with a process easily adaptable to semiconductor device manufacturing. A phosphorus diffusion process at 870 °C for 60 min significantly improves the electronic quality of a QM‐Si wafer cut from a contaminated edge brick. The harmonic minority carrier recombination lifetime of the wafer, a key predictor of ultimate device performance, experiences a tenfold increase from 17 to 178 µs, which makes the scrap QM‐Si material usable for device fabrication. Local areas with suboptimal (<50 µs) lifetimes remaining can be further improved by a high temperature anneal before the phosphorus diffusion process.

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“…The seed-cast growth method is based on the use of perfectly oriented monocrystalline square silicon slabs, usually <100>, which are properly placed at the bottom of the quartz crucible [3]. The crystal melt/growth process is consequently based on the application of a passive cooling from the bottom of the crucible to geometrically control the melting of the seed up to a defined height, using a calibrated quartz rod, then applying a corresponding cooling before the seed disappears into the melt.…”

Section: Industrial Manufacturing Of Mono-like Ingots Experimental Fmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In particular, one of the most attractive approaches in the PV field so far, the brand-new mono-like wafers, are entering the market as one of the most promising advances. These wafers present monocrystalline features on ingots manufactured according to commercial cast growth furnaces [2,3]. As a result, the optimum wafer substrates share some of the main advantages of the well-established Cz-Si mono crystals and the cost-effectiveness and mass scale issues of mc-Si.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

About the origin of low wafer performance and crystal defect generation on seed-cast growth of industrial mono-like silicon ingots

Guerrero

Parra

Carballo

et al. 2012

Prog. Photovolt: Res. Appl.

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The era of the seed-cast grown monocrystalline-based silicon ingots is coming. Mono-like, pseudomono or quasimono wafers are product labels that can be nowadays found in the market, as a critical innovation for the photovoltaic industry. They integrate some of the most favorable features of the conventional silicon substrates for solar cells, so far, such as the high solar cell efficiency offered by the monocrystalline Czochralski-Si (Cz-Si) wafers and the lower cost, high productivity and full square-shape that characterize the well-known multicrystalline casting growth method. Nevertheless, this innovative crystal growth approach still faces a number of mass scale problems that need to be resolved, in order to gain a deep, 100% reliable and worldwide market: (i) extended defects formation during the growth process; (ii) optimization of the seed recycling; and (iii) parts of the ingots giving low solar cells performance, which directly affect the production costs and yield of this approach. Therefore, this paper presents a series of casting crystal growth experiments and characterization studies from ingots, wafers and cells manufactured in an industrial approach, showing the main sources of crystal defect formation, impurity enrichment and potential consequences at solar cell level. The previously mentioned technological drawbacks are directly addressed, proposing industrial actions to pave the way of this new wafer technology to high efficiency solar cells.

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Casting Single Crystal Silicon: Novel Defect Profiles from BP Solar's Mono<sup>2</sup><sup> TM </sup>Wafers

Cited by 143 publications

References 10 publications

Recent progress in crystalline silicon solar cells

Recent progress in crystalline silicon solar cells

Electronic Quality Improvement of Highly Defective Quasi‐Mono Silicon Material by Phosphorus Diffusion Gettering

About the origin of low wafer performance and crystal defect generation on seed-cast growth of industrial mono-like silicon ingots

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