Mechanical seed coupling
AssigneesMitsubishi Materials Corporation, Mitsubishi Polycrystalline Silicon America Corporation (MIPSA)
InventorsJoseph Lovorn, Larry Gurley
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Abstract
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method of manufacturing silicon seed rod in which two silicon seeds are joined into one long silicon seed rod by mechanical coupling. A mechanical seed coupler is a body in having an outer wall, an upper surface with an upper aperture, a lower surface with a lower aperture, and an inner wall surrounding an inner space. The mechanical seed couple can be of a shape including a cylinder shape, an elliptical tube shape, a rectangular tube shape and a square tube shape. Furthermore the mechanical seed coupler can be of unitary construction, made from one solid piece of material, or it can be composed of subparts.
Claims12
A mechanical seed coupler for coupling two seed rods comprising:
- a body, surrounding a hollow space for accepting tips of two seed rods for coupling, having a surface on one end of the body and a surface on the other end of the body, wherein the each surface corresponds to a respective surface of each of the seed rods being coupled.
A seed rod extender for extending seed rods comprising:
- a length of seed rod at having a tip at one end for coupling to a short connecting rod and a mechanical coupler with a single aperture and a surface inside the aperture corresponding to a respective surface of a seed rod to be coupled to the seed rod extender.
A method of making mechanical seed coupler for coupling two seed rods comprising:
- providing a disk of polycrystalline silicon;
- boring small holes in an evenly spaced pattern around the disk;
- chamfering an area around each small hole in the disk;
- and
- boring out around an edge of each chamfered surface a bore;
- whereby the mechanical seed coupler is created when the bore is separated from the disk.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.