Sino-american Silicon Products Inc.

National Taiwan University

Chung-Wen Lan

Wen-Ching Hsu

Wen-Huai Yu

Yu-Min Yang

Sung-Lin Hsu

Cheng-Jui Yang

Wen-Chieh Lan

Kai-Yuan Pai

Yu-Tsung Chiang

Chan-Lu Su

Ming-Kung Hsiao

Ching-Shan Lin

Hung-Sheng Chou

Bruce Hsu

Pei-Kai Huang

Ya-Lu Tsai

Sheng-Hua Ni

I-Ching Li

Teng-Yu Wang

Sung Lin Hsu

Yen-Chih Lin

Suz-Hua Ho

Yi-Der Tai

Yu-Ting Wong

Kimsam Hsieh

Chao-Kun Hsieh

Ya-Wen Yang

A crystalline silicon ingot and a method of fabricating the same are disclosed. The crystalline silicon ingot of the invention includes multiple silicon crystal grains growing in a vertical direction of the crystalline silicon ingot. The crystalline silicon ingot has a bottom with a silicon crystal grain having a first average crystal grain size of less than about 12 mm. The crystalline silicon ingot has an upper portion, which is about 250 mm away from said bottom, with a silicon crystal grain having a second average crystal grain size of greater than about 14 mm.

Crystalline silicon ingot and method of fabricating the same

A method of fabricating a poly-crystalline silicon ingot includes: (a) loading a nucleation promotion layer onto a bottom of a mold; (b) providing a silicon source on the nucleation promotion layer in the mold; (c) heating the mold until the silicon source is melted into a silicon melt completely; (d) controlling at least one thermal control parameter regarding the silicon melt continually to enable the silicon melt to nucleate on the nucleation promotion layer such that a plurality of silicon grains grow in the vertical direction; (e) controlling the at least one thermal control parameter to enable the plurality of the silicon grains to continuously grow with an average grain size increasing progressively in the vertical direction until entirety of the silicon melt is solidified to obtain the poly-crystalline silicon ingot, wherein the nucleation promotion layer is loaded by spreading a plurality of mono-Si particles over the bottom of the mold.

Methods of fabricating a poly-crystalline silcon ingot from a nucleation promotion layer comprised of chips and chunks of silicon-containing particles

A poly-crystalline silicon ingot having a bottom and defining a vertical direction includes a plurality of silicon grains grown in the vertical direction, in which the plurality of the silicon grains have at least three crystal orientations; and a nucleation promotion layer comprising a plurality of chips and chunks of poly-crystalline silicon on the bottom, wherein the poly-crystalline silicon ingot has a defect density at a height ranging from about 150 mm to about 250 mm of the poly-crystalline silicon ingot that is less than 15%.

Poly-crystalline silicon ingot having a nucleation promotion layer comprising a plurality of chips and chunks of poly-crystalline silicon on the bottom

Present disclosure provides a multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si) brick, including a bottom portion starting from a bottom to a height of 100 mm, a middle portion starting from the height of 100 mm to a height of 200 mm; and a top portion starting from the height of 200 mm to a top. A percentage of incoherent grain boundary in the bottom portion is greater than a percentage of incoherent grain boundary in the top portion. Present disclosure also provides a multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si) wafer. The mc-Si wafer includes a percentage of non-&#x3a3; grain boundary from about 60 to about 75 and a percentage of &#x3a3;3 grain boundary from about 12 to about 25.

Multicrystalline silicon brick and silicon wafer therefrom

A crystalline silicon ingot and a method of fabricating the same are provided. The method utilizes a nucleation promotion layer to facilitate a plurality of silicon grains to nucleate on the nucleation promotion layer from a silicon melt and grow in a vertical direction into silicon grains until the silicon melt is completely solidified. The increment rate of defect density in the silicon ingot along the vertical direction has a range of 0.01%/mm&#x2dc;10%/mm.

Crystalline silicon ingot including nucleation promotion layer

Method of fabricating crystalline silicon ingot including nucleation promotion layer

The invention discloses a seed used for crystalline silicon ingot casting. A seed according to a preferred embodiment of the invention includes a crystal and an impurity diffusion-resistant layer. The crystal is constituted by at least one grain. The impurity diffusion-resistant layer is formed to overlay an outer surface of the crystal. A crystalline silicon ingot fabricated by use of the seed of the invention has significantly reduced red zone and yellow zone.

Seed used for crystalline silicon ingot casting

A crystal growth device includes a crucible and a heater setting. The crucible has a bottom and a top opening. The heater setting surrounds the crucible and is movable relative to the crucible along a top-bottom direction of the crucible and between first and second positions. The heater setting includes a first temperature heating zone and a second temperature heating zone higher in temperature than the first temperature heating zone. The heater setting is in the first position when the crucible is in the second temperature heating zone and in the second position when the crucible is in the first temperature heating zone.

Crystal growth device

In a crystalline silicon formation apparatus, a quick cooling method is applied to the bottom of a crucible to control a growth orientation of a polycrystalline silicon grain, such that the crystal grain forms twin boundary, and the twin boundary is a symmetric grain boundary, and the crystal grain is solidified and grown upward in unidirection to form a complete polycrystalline silicon, such that defects or impurities will not form in the polycrystalline silicon easily.

Crystalline silicon formation apparatus

An approach is provided for a method to manufacture a crystalline silicon ingot. The method comprises providing a mold formed for melting and cooling a silicon feedstock by using a directional solidification process, disposing a barrier layer inside the mold, disposing one or more silicon crystal seeds on the barrier layer, loading the silicon feedstock on the silicon crystal seeds, heating the mold to obtain a silicon melt, and cooling the mold by the directional solidification process to solidify the silicon melt into a silicon ingot. The mold is heated until the silicon feedstock is fully melted and the silicon crystal seeds are at least partially melted.

Method of manufacturing crystalline silicon ingot

In slicing a crystal bar into silicon wafers, an average about 40% of silicon would be loss due to the widths of slicing wires themselves. The fact that the silicon slurry is discarded as sludge or discarded after recovering silicon carbide particles causes a large waste of cost. If the silicon slurry (40% of silicon) could be recovered as the raw material for growing silicon crystal bars, the production cost would be lowered. The recovery method of silicon slurry according to the present invention could effectively obtain silicon raw material after removing impurities, which could recover the raw material used in solar crystals, further capable of increasing the silicon crystal production and lowering the cost.

Recovery method of silicon slurry

A method for growing stoichiometric lithium niobate and lithium tantalate single crystals is provided. A crystal growing apparatus that includes a long crucible with a separation member therein is used. A solid feed material is quenched from a molten state, solidified in batches or sintered before charged in the long crucible to obtain substantially stoichiometric solids. The separation member divides the long crucible into a melting zone and a feeding zone located under the melting zone, and it could effectively prevent bubble formation in the growing crystal. The stoichiometry of the axial and radial composition can be well controlled, and the control of the diameter of the crystal body is easily achieved as well.

Apparatus for growing stoichiometric lithium niobate and lithium tantalate single crystals and method of growing the same

A rotational directional solidification crystal growth system includes a vertical furnace, a crucible, and a rotate support device. The vertical furnace contains a high-temperature portion and a low-temperature portion. The crucible has a seed well and a growth region. The seed well and the growth region contain a seed crystal and raw material, respectively. The crucible moves from the high-temperature portion of the furnace to the low-temperature portion of the furnace or the thermal profile moves related to a stationary crucible to proceed the crystal growth. The rotation support device supports and rotates the crucible, and the tangent velocity of the rotated crucible is no less than about 5&pgr;/3 cm/s.

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Hsinchu, Taiwan

Chung-Wen Lan