Challenge to a new growth technique to fabricate crystalline Si sheet on the melt by the aid of radiative cooling

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25600084
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Crystal engineering
• Research Institution: Nagoya University
• Principal Investigator: USAMI Noritaka 名古屋大学, 工学(系)研究科(研究院), 教授 (20262107)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 太陽電池 / 結晶シリコン / 結晶成長

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We proposed a new growth method to obtain thin crystalline sheets from Si melt to reduce the manufacturing cost. By the conventional method, Si wafers are fabricated by slicing a large scale ingot. During this process, the half of crystalline ingot is wasted due to kerf loss. In this study we attempted to directly grow thin crystals on the Si melt by the aid of radiative cooling. In our designed furnace, a cooling plate is set above the Si melt to control the degree of radiative cooling. At first, we calculate temperature distributions and investigate effect of the cooling plate position on the surface temperature of the Si melt. As a result, the supercooling of the Si melt surface can be changed as large as 5℃ by shifting the plate position. In addition, we confirmed that the thin crystal can be successfully grown from a Si substrate in an originally designed furnace. Therefore, our proposed growth method is promising to directly obtain high quality crystalline sheet from Si melt.

Free Research Field

材料工学