Development of Textured High-Quality Si Multicrystal Ingots with Same Grain Orientation and Large Grain Sizes by the New Dendritic Casting Method

The dendrite casting method has been developed to constantly obtain high-quality Si multicrystal ingots, on the basis of our new concept to control the grain orientation and grain size. Using this method, textured high-quality Si multicrystal ingots (15cm
^oslash
) have been grown on the {110} or {112} upper surface of dendrite crystals. So, the Si multicrystal ingots have same grain orientation and quite large grain sizes (ges3cm), and have the longer lifetime more than 35mus without hydrogen passivation. The conversion efficiency of solar cells prepared by the Si multicrystal with the same orientation is found to be higher than that of the solar cell with different orientations. The conversion efficiency of about 17% has been obtained without texture structure and hydrogen passivation. So, this dendritic casting method is very promising in the field of the Si multicrystal solar cells