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The Influence of Heat Flux Control Unit for Improving the Multi- Crystalline Silicon Ingot for Photovoltaic Application

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Abstract

This study investigates two kinds of heat exchanger block, one with heat flux control unit and the other without heat flux control unit for use in Directional solidification (DS) furnace to produce multi-crystalline silicon (mc-Si) ingot for photovoltaic application. A global numerical model was established to investigate the effect of both the configurations on the temperature distribution, thermal stress distribution, and impurities distribution in the solidified mc-Si ingot during the DS process. The numerical results indicate that the shape of the melt-crystal interfaces remained relatively slightly convex when the heat flux control unit was used and lowest thermal stress throughout the entire silicon ingots was obvious. Carbon concentration and silicon carbide (SiC) concentration also have been reduced due to the use of the heat flux control unit in DS furnace. The heat flux control unit used DS furnace has taken lower power compared to without use of heat flux control unit. The use of the heat flux control unit in the modified system gives better results compared to without use of heat flux control unit in the conventional system.

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Acknowledgements

One of the authors, Madhesh Raji thanks to SSN Trust, Chennai, India, for providing financial support under the junior research fellowship scheme.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Department of science and technology Government of India (Order No. DST/TMD/CERI/RES/2020/7(c) dated on 31/12/2020).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Research Centre, Sri Sivasubramaniya Nadar College of Engineering, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, 603110, India

    Madhesh Raji, Kesavan Venkatachalam, Srinivasan Manikkam & Ramasamy Perumalsamy

  2. Department of Electronics, St. Joseph’s College (Autonomous), Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, 620 002, India

    Kesavan Venkatachalam

  3. National Central University, Taoyuan City, Taiwan, 320317

    Jyh-Chen Chen

Authors
  1. Madhesh Raji
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  2. Kesavan Venkatachalam
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  3. Jyh-Chen Chen
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  4. Srinivasan Manikkam
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  5. Ramasamy Perumalsamy
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Contributions

All the authors made equal contribution in the manuscript.

1. Madhesh Raji - Writing - Original Draft

2. Kesavan Venkatachalam- Formal Analysis, Investigation,

3. Jyh -Chen Chen – Investigation,

4. Srinivasan Manikkam- Supervision,

5. Ramasamy Perumalsamy - review & editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Srinivasan Manikkam.

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Consent for publication was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Raji, M., Venkatachalam, K., Chen, JC. et al. The Influence of Heat Flux Control Unit for Improving the Multi- Crystalline Silicon Ingot for Photovoltaic Application. Silicon 14, 12437–12445 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12633-022-01947-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12633-022-01947-6

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