High-Frequency Furnace. Tenth Quarterly Progress Report for Period Ending March 31, 1984

摘要

An important phase of silicon solar cell production via ingot technology is the conversion of polycrystalline silicon to the single-crystal, ingot from that is required for wafering. In the current art such ingots are produced either by pulling from the melt or by various crucible growth techniques. A characteristic of all of these methods, which use bulk melting, is that a refractory crucible is required to hold the molten charge. This imposes the disadvantages that the silicon is always contaminated to some degree by dissolution of the refractory into the melt, which can reduce solar cell efficiency, and the crucibles themselves represent a significant cost factor. Clearly, elimination of the need for a refractory crucible in the melt growth of single-crystal silicon would be an important process improvement. (ERA citation 09:031453)