Quartz crucibles are used to produce substantial silicon wafers that are essential for manufacturing microchips and solar cells. This is due to their excellent quality and crystalline consistency.
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Characteristics
A quartz crucible is a container that holds metal for melting in a furnace. It must withstand high temperatures and protect the metal from damage. Quartz crucibles are made from silicon dioxide, which makes them highly resistant to acids and halogens but not to bases. They also have a low-temperature coefficient, which means that they will not lose their shape when they are heated. These characteristics make them ideal for melting metals in industrial applications.
A crucible is necessary for the production of multi-crystalline silicon (mc-Si) ingots, as it helps to reduce the number of impurities, dislocations, and sub-grain boundaries. The conventional mc-Si ingot casting method uses a crucible coated with silicon nitride (Si3N4) powder, which prevents the mc-Si ingot from sticking to the crucible during solidification. However, this method is not suitable for reducing the size of mc-Si ingots.
To improve the productivity of this process, FTB Research Institute, Co., Ltd., and UM have developed a new type of quartz crucible called the Liquinert quartz crucible. This crucible has an outer layer of translucent quartz glass and an internal layer of synthetic quartz glass. It also contains a crystallization promoter-containing layer, interposed between the internal and outer layers. This layer enables the mc-Si to be crystallized toward the inner surface of the synthetic quartz glass.
Applications
Quartz crucibles are used in the semiconductor industry to prepare single-crystal silicon. They are vital for the production of microchips and solar cells. They are also used in laboratories for measuring the chemical purity and resistance of metals. In addition, the demand for memory chips is increasing due to technological advancements in artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and machine learning technologies, which consume large amounts of data. This is driving the growth of the quartz crucible market.
Unlike conventional laboratory glass, which trace elements can contaminate, quartz glass has low thermal expansion and a tight geometric tolerance. This makes it ideal for manufacturing semiconductors, ceramics, and solar cells. Moreover, quartz glass has a high softening temperature and optical transparency. It is resistant to acids and halogens but not against bases.
The present invention provides a method for producing a crucible base of quartz glass. The method includes:
- Feeding a powder of naturally occurring quartz into a rotating mold along its inner wall.
- Melting the powder with internal heating under a gaseous environment.
- Cooling and solidifying to form the crucible base.
The crucible base is then coated with a layer of barium oxide. This reduces pollution on the crucible wall while producing single-crystal silicon using the Czochralski method.
Materials
Fused quartz offers several unique properties that make it invaluable in research and industry. It has a high softening temperature, optical transparency over a wide range, low expansion, and resistance to various elements and compounds.
In producing more enormous diameter ingots, two problems occur: bubble formation and impurity transfer. The latter problem is more severe because it can destroy the crystal structure of the silicon wafers pulled from the molten ingots. To avoid these problems, the crucible wall must be as pure as possible to minimize impurities dissolving into the silicon melt during the CZ process.
The present invention provides silica or quartz glass crucibles that have inner layers that are substantially pure and substantially bubble-free when used in a CZ-crystal growing process. The crucibles are also substantially stable against roughening and spot devitrification.
The crucibles consist of a rotatable mold that has cavity 1a formed therein. The base body of the crucible comprises an outer layer formed by heating and melting internally a silicon dioxide powder, for example, a powder of naturally occurring quartz.
The base body also has an internal layer formed by discharging a synthetic silica powder inside a high-temperature gaseous atmosphere. The atoms of the quartz in the outer layer combine with atoms of alkaline elements, such as Li, Na, K, Rb, and Cs, to form complexes that are gettered.
Design
A quartz crucible is a container to melt and hold silicon in a high-temperature environment. This process creates giant silicon wafers that are utilized in various industries, including the manufacturing of microchips and solar cells. The quality of the wafers produced in this type of crucible is critical, as it has to have exceptional crystalline consistency and purity. The crucibles are made of fused quartz, which is ideal for a variety of applications due to its high softening temperature (1670degC), optical transparency over a wide range, low thermal expansion, and resistance to a large number of elements and compounds.
The present invention relates to a method for making a bubble-free crucible by incorporating an aluminum doping agent into the inner layer of the crucible. The method utilizes quick and high fusion power at the initial stage of forming a silica web structure that is then converted to an inner layer of a glass-quartz-based crucible. This prevents the formation of bubbles, bubbling, and re-crystallization during the melting process. It also suppresses the growth of cristobalite on an inner surface and reduces roughening.
To detect and count bubbles in the spatial videos of a quartz crucible, the improved YOLOv5-QCB model is combined with the SORT tracking algorithm. This enables creating a simple, efficient, and practical bubble detection and counting system.
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