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Investigation on influence of dimensionless numbers in molten silicon during multi-crystalline silicon growth process

M. SRINIVASAN1, P. RAMASAMY1

Affiliation

  1. SSN Research centre , Department of physics, SSN College of Engineering, Chennai, India-603110

Abstract

Multi-crystalline silicon is key material with advantages of low-production cost and high conversion efficiency of PV solar cells. The paper deals with the numerical investigation of melt flows during directional solidification(DS) of silicon growth process. The simulation is made in two dimensional axi-symmetric model by the finite-element method. The melt flow pattern in the crucible has significant effects on the formation of defects and distribution of impurities concentration in the grown crystals. The study of fluid dynamics based dimensionless numbers is used to control the melt flow pattern for optimizing the DS process and improving ingot quality. The influence of the axial velocity field, vorticity, diffusive heat flux and convective heat flux on the molten silicon were investigated for various Prandtl numbers between 0.001 to 2 with the help of numerical technique. In this paper fundamental thermodynamic phenomena were simulated and analysed for the two different Prandtl numbers at constant Rayleigh number Ra=1000. The aim is to increase the grain size and reduce dislocation density through control of the melt flow pattern. The numerical results also provide a basic understanding of the heat transfer characteristics during directional solidification of silicon growth process.

Keywords

Silicon, Simulation, Fluid flow, Heat transfer, Dimensionless numbers.

Submitted at: March 11, 2015
Accepted at: April 5, 2016

Citation

M. SRINIVASAN, P. RAMASAMY, Investigation on influence of dimensionless numbers in molten silicon during multi-crystalline silicon growth process, Journal of Optoelectronics and Advanced Materials Vol. 18, Iss. 3-4, pp. 315-321 (2016)