Thin, High Lifetime Silicon Wafers with No Sawing; Re-crystallization in a Thin Film Capsule

The project fits within the area of renewable energy called photovoltaics (PV), or the generation of electricity directly from sunlight using semiconductor devices. PV has the greatest potential of any renewable energy technology. The vast majority of photovoltaic modules are made on crystalline silicon wafers and these wafers accounts for the largest fraction of the cost of a photovoltaic module. Thus, a method of making high quality, low cost wafers would be extremely beneficial to the PV industry The industry standard technology creates wafers by casting an ingot and then sawing wafers from the ingot. Sawing rendered half of the highly refined silicon feedstock as un-reclaimable dust. Being a brittle material, the sawing is actually a type of grinding operation which is costly both in terms of capital equipment and in terms of consumables costs. The consumables costs associated with the wire sawing technology are particularly burdensome and include the cost of the wire itself (continuously fed, one time use), the abrasive particles, and, waste disposal. The goal of this project was to make wafers directly from molten silicon with no sawing required. The fundamental concept was to create a very low cost (but low quality) wafer of the desired shape and size and then to improve the quality of the wafer by a specialized thermal treatment (called re-crystallization). Others have attempted to create silicon sheet by recrystallization with varying degrees of success. Key among the difficulties encountered by others were: a) difficulty in maintaining the physical shape of the sheet during the recrystallization process and b) difficulty in maintaining the cleanliness of the sheet during recrystallization. Our method solved both of these challenges by encapsulating the preform wafer in a protective capsule prior to recrystallization (see below). The recrystallization method developed in this work was extremely effective at maintaining the shape and the cleanliness of the wafer. In addition, it was found to be suitable for growing very large crystals. The equipment used was simple and inexpensive to operate. Reasonable solar cells were fabricated on re-crystallized material