Melt Growth of Silicon Sheets by Edge-Supported Pulling

摘要

Silicon sheets over 14 cm exp 2 in area and less than 0.4 mm in thickness have been solidified from the melt by an edge-supported pulling technique. A capillary film of liquid silicon is formed between two parallel wettable filaments immersed in the liquid. As the filaments are pulled away from the melt, the remote region of the film solidifies between the filaments in a continuous fashion while the meniscus is replenished by capillarity. Grain sizes of 0.2 cm exp 2 for unseeded growth and 2 cm exp 2 for seeded growth were obtained. An average AMl solar cell efficiency of 10% was attained on unseeded sheets, while the average was 13% for sheets grown from seeds with a (anti 110)) face and a (anti 1 anti 12) axis. (ERA citation 07:059367)