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Fast Pulling of n-Type Si Ingots for Enhanced Si Solar Cell Production

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Abstract

Reducing the manufacturing costs of silicon substrates is an important issue in the silicon-based solar cell industry. In this study, we developed a high-throughput ingot growth method by accelerating the pulling speed in the Czochralski process. By controlling the heat flow of the ingot growth chamber and at the solid-liquid interfaces, the pulling speed of an ingot could be increased by ~ 15% compared to the conventional method, while retaining high quality. The wafer obtained at a high pulling speed showed an enhanced minority carrier lifetime compared with conventional wafers, due to the vacancy passivation effect, and also demonstrated comparable bulk resistivity and impurities. The results in this work are expected to open a new way to enhance the productivity of Si wafers used for Si solar cells, and therefore, to reduce the overall manufacturing cost.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP) and the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy (MOTIE) of the Republic of Korea (No. 20163030013700). This research was also supported by the Climate Change Research Hub (CRH) of KAIST (Grant No. EEWS-2017-N11170057).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. R&D Team, R&D center, Woongjin Energy, Daejeon, 34012, Republic of Korea

    Kwanghun Kim, Jaechang Park & Ilsun Pang

  2. Graduate School of Energy, Environment, Water, and Sustainability (EEWS), Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, 34141, Republic of Korea

    Sanghyun Park, Sangwoo Ryu & Jihun Oh

  3. KAIST Institute of NanoCentury, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, 34141, Republic of Korea

    Jihun Oh

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  1. Kwanghun Kim
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  2. Sanghyun Park
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  3. Jaechang Park
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  4. Ilsun Pang
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  5. Sangwoo Ryu
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  6. Jihun Oh
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Correspondence to Kwanghun Kim, Sangwoo Ryu or Jihun Oh.

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Kim, K., Park, S., Park, J. et al. Fast Pulling of n-Type Si Ingots for Enhanced Si Solar Cell Production. Electron. Mater. Lett. 14, 461–466 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13391-018-0040-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13391-018-0040-3

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