Dislocation interaction with vicinally faceted groove at grain boundary in multi-crystalline silicon

Abstract

The morphology of the solid–liquid interface and the GB development during directional solidification process of multi-crystalline silicon (mc-Si) has been studied with an in situ observation system. A small angle grain boundary was observed to have a gradually increasing faceted groove, finally reaching a steady state. A geometric model is used to simulate the growth of groove facets with consideration of different facet growth kinetics. It appears that the kinetics of a face vicinal to a {111} plane is most likely to reproduce the observed behavior. Later on, variations of groove size and grain boundary direction occurred. The geometric simulation results show that such perturbations could be produced by the interaction of single dislocations with one of the vicinal facets.