Growth of structure-controlled polycrystalline silicon ingots for solar cells by casting

Fujiwara, Kozo; Pan, Wugen; Usami, Noritaka; Sawada, Kohei; Tokairin, M.; Nosé, Yukihiko; Nomura, Akihiro; Shishido, Toetsu; Nakajima, Kazuo

doi:10.1016/j.actamat.2006.03.014

Cited by 164 publications

(106 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Faster cooling will result in smaller grains due to the higher generation rate of crystal nuclei [9][10][11]. Also, crystal with larger grain or mono-like multi-crystalline silicon crystal can be produced from the seed located at the bottom of the crucible.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The relationship between minority carrier life time and structural defects in silicon ingot grown with single seed

Lee¹,

Kim²

2015

Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology

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Among the various possible factors affecting the Minority Carrier Life Time (MCLT) of the mc-Si crystal, dislocations formed during the cooling period after solidification were found to be a major element. It was confirmed that other defects such as grain boundary or twin boundary were not determinative defects affecting the MCLT because most of these defects seemed to be formed during the solidification period. With a measurement of total thickness variation (TTV) and bow of the silicon wafers, it was found that residual stress remaining in the mc-Si crystal might be another major factor affecting the MCLT. Thus, it is expected that better quality of mc-Si can be grown when the cooling process right after solidification is carried out as slow as possible.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The relationship between minority carrier life time and structural defects in silicon ingot grown with single seed

Lee¹,

Kim²

2015

Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology

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“…3, which result from undercooling at the initial growth stage [11,12]. However, the cristobalite seeded ingot (Fig.…”

Section: Initial Grain Size Distributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Growth of High-Quality Multicrystalline Silicon Ingot through the Cristobalite Seeded Method

Yu¹,

Ding²,

Chen³

et al. 2016

JMSE-B

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Abstract:In this paper, an effective method for grain quality control in directional solidification (DS) by using cristobalite particles as seeds is proposed. The cristobalite seeds paved on the bottom of the crucible significantly enhanced the crystal quality of the multicrystalline silicon ingot in comparison with fused quartz seeds. The distribution of initial grain sizes at the ingot bottom was small and uniform. Crystals with lower dislocation density showed a higher and more uniform minority carrier lifetime compared to that produced by the fused quartz seeded growth method used in industry. A higher average solar cell conversion efficiency of about 0.09% in absolute value was obtained using the cristobalite seeded ingot (18.31%) in comparison with that using a fused quartz seeded ingot (18.22%) under the same cell production process.

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“…To control these extended defects, many attempts have been made through optimization of the growth process. For example, the dendritic growth technique controls the initial nucleation to obtain large grained mc-Si with a high fraction of Σ3 grain boundaries [1,2]. Moreover, a technique such as mono-like Si uses single crystal seeds to obtain monocrystalline Si from the directional solidification setup similar to mc-Si [3,4].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Control of extended defects in cast multicrystalline silicon using polycrystalline template

Prakash

Jiptner

Chen

et al. 2015

Phys. Status Solidi C

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Extended defects were controlled using polycrystalline silicon as a template for cast‐growth of multicrystalline silicon. At the initial stage of growth, small randomly oriented grains with a high density of random type grain boundaries were obtained. With growth, the grain size increased and the fraction of random grain boundaries decreased. Electrical activity of defects was investigated and it was found that with growth, network of small angle grain boundaries became the most electrically active defects. This network of small angle grain boundaries were found to have a tilt angle less than 3° and were mainly found in elongating grains. The density of these highly electrically active grain boundaries increased with growth. This can be attributed to propagation and agglomeration of dislocations into small angle grain boundaries. The high density of random grain boundaries in this ingot may suppress dislocation propagation between grains, however they do not intersect elongating grains enabling dislocation propagation in elongated grains. (© 2015 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

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Growth of structure-controlled polycrystalline silicon ingots for solar cells by casting

Cited by 164 publications

References 20 publications

The relationship between minority carrier life time and structural defects in silicon ingot grown with single seed

The relationship between minority carrier life time and structural defects in silicon ingot grown with single seed

Growth of High-Quality Multicrystalline Silicon Ingot through the Cristobalite Seeded Method

Control of extended defects in cast multicrystalline silicon using polycrystalline template

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