Seed manipulation for artificially controlled defect technique in new growth method for quasi-monocrystalline Si ingot based on casting

We propose a new growth method for quasi-monocrystalline Si that achieves high-quality ingots and a high yield ratio. This method induces defect regions with compose dislocations surrounded by grain boundaries. These functional defects benefit the crystalline quality through impurity gettering, dislocation-propagation blocking, and stress relaxation with plastic deformation. Functional defect regions were grown from designed seeds and introduced to ingot edges where crystalline Si was disposed because of contamination. Preliminary experimentation demonstrated that functional defects could effectively form from the manipulated seeds. We call this method the Seed Manipulation for Artificially Controlled Defect Technique. (C) 2015 The Japan Society of Applied Physics