Effect of Side Insulation on Stress and Dislocation in the Multi-crystalline Silicon Ingot during Cooling Process

Abstract

Haasen-Alexander-Sumino model was applied to analyze the effects of the side insulation on thermal stress and dislocation density in silicon crystal during the cooling process. The simulation results showed that the side insulation being immobile initially and then rapidly moving up was the most favorable for the cooling process due to the low thermal stress and dislocation density were obtained. The optimized design was implemented in casting experiments, and the experimental results showed that the high-performance multi-crystalline silicon ingot had a lower dislocation agglomerates density. The average conversion efficiency of solar cells was about 0.05% higher with the optimized cooling process (18.43%) than with the original cooling process (18.38%).