Process for the manufacture of coarsely crystalline to monocrystalline sheets of semiconductor material
AssigneeHeliotronic Forschungs- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft fur Solarzellen-Grundstoffe mbH
InventorsJoachim Geissler, Dieter Helmreich
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Abstract
The invention provides a process for the manufacture of coarsely crystalline to monocrystalline sheets and/or plates of semiconductor material of preferred orientation. A meniscus of molten semiconductor material comes in contact with a moving, cooler substrate of the same coarsely crystalline to monocrystalline semiconductor material, during which, while transferring the preferred orientation, a thin sheet of the semiconductor material is pulled onto the substrate and, after cooling, becomes detached from the substrate. The substrate can be reused as often as desired.
Claims6
In a process for the manufacture of coarsely crystalline to monocrystalline sheets of semi-conductor material of preferred orientation by applying molten semiconductor material to a substrate with subsequent controlled solidification and subsequent automatic release of the applied semiconductor material, the improvement comprising the steps of:
- bringing molten semiconductor material into contact with a substrate of the same semiconductor material having the desired coarsely crystalline to monocrystalline structure, said substrate being guided past the point of contact at a speed of at least 75 mm/s;
- and
- maintaining the substrate at a temperature of not more than 0.8 T.sub.M, where T.sub.M denotes the melting point of the semiconductor material expressed in degress Kelvin, so as to ensure the automatic release of the growing sheet.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.