Method of making a solar grade silicon wafer
OwnerJohn Carberryinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of making a solar grade silicon wafer is disclosed. In at least some embodiments of this invention, the method includes the follow steps: providing a slurry including a liquid that essentially prevents the oxidation of silicon powder and a silicon powder that is essentially free of oxides; providing a solar grade wafer mold defining an interior for receiving the slurry; introducing the slurry into the solar grade wafer mold; precipitating the silicon powder from the slurry to form a preform of the solar grade silicon wafer; and crystallizing the preform to make the solar grade silicon wafer.
Claims8
A method of making a solar grade silicon wafer, said method comprising the steps of:
- providing a ceramic solar grade wafer mold that has a porosity that is greater than zero;
- providing a mixture that includes a suspending medium, a suspended binding agent, and a suspended pore-occluding agent;
- treating said ceramic solar grade wafer mold with said mixture to produce a ceramic solar grade wafer mold having a reduced porosity;
- providing a slurry including a liquid that essentially prevents the oxidation of silicon powder and a silicon powder that is essentially free of oxides;
- introducing said slurry into said ceramic solar grade wafer mold having a reduced porosity;
- precipitating said silicon powder from said slurry to form a preform of said solar grade silicon wafer;
- and
- crystallizing said preform to make said solar grade silicon wafer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.