Method an apparatus for feed on to a take-up reel in high speed silico

Abstract

A take-up reel and take-up reel starting feed for use in high speed ribbon crystallization of molten material e.g., a metal or a semiconductor material, in which a starting strip is pre-wound onto the take-up reel sufficiently to frictionally engage the take-up reel and be thereby drawn onto the take-up reel from a supply reel for the starting strip, and wherein the linear velocity of the starting strip in a contact zone is synchronized with the linear velocity of a cast ribbon of the material leaving a rotating drum on which the casting initiated, so that the ribbon of cast material, after it passes over the starting strip in the contact zone, will contact the starting strip and pass onto the take-up reel in contact with the starting strip and without bunching or significant stretching of the ribbon of cast material. After a sufficient number of revolutions of the take-up reel to ensure that the ribbon of cast material is frictionally engaged by the wrapping of a sufficient amount of the ribbon and starting strip, in contact with each other, about the take-up reel, the starting strip may be severed, leaving only the ribbon of cast material in the remaining wraps on the take-up reel.