<title>Silicon Ingot Growth By An Oscillating Crucible Technique</title>

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The efficiency of devices made from cast silicon is limited by structural factors such as dislocations and grain boundaries. Improving the crystallinity of this cast material continues to be an area of great importance to the photovoltaic community. To improve the solar cell performance, single crystal silicon with lower dislocation densities and silicon carbide inclusions are necessary. This paper describes an ingot growth technique which is designed to yield a high quality ingot. In this method, the crucible containing the melt is rotationally accelerated and decelerated periodically. This oscillation is intended to homogenize the solution by effectively stirring the melt. Several ingots were directionally solidified using this Oscillating Crucible Technique (OCT) with the result that single crystallinity was achieved to the top of the ingot and approximately 70% of the ingot was single crystal. Using an IR spectrophotometer, the interstitial oxygen and substitutional carbon content was measured and found to be uniform over the entire ingot. Details of the crystal growth conditions and resultant structure with chemical analysis is presented.