Melt growth of multicrystalline SiGe with large compositional distribution for new solar cell applications

The melt-growth conditions to obtain SiGe multicrystals with microscopic compositional distribution are presented. These SiGe multicrystals are useful for new solar cells whose wavelength dependence of the absorption coefficient can be freely designed. The multicrystals with wide compositional distribution from Si to Ge can be grown by a melt growth technique such as the practical casting method. In this work, it was studied as to how much the micro and macroscopic compositional distribution in SiGe multicrystals grown from binary Si-Ge melts could be controlled by the melt composition and the cooling process. Such SiGe multicrystals with wide distribution of the composition would also have wide distribution of the absorption coefficient, and could be hopeful for new solar cell applications using the practical casting method. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.