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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 667 records · Page 37
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1981

Large-area silicon-on-ceramic substrates for low-cost solar cells

The SCIM (Silicon-Coating-By-Inverted Meniscus) process to produce SOC (silicon-on-ceramic) substrates has been investigated for various growth conditions and substrate velocities (4-30 cm/min). Slotted mullite-based substrates (10-cm-wide by 100-cm-long) have been coated with smooth, continuous silicon layers, with thicknesses in the range from 100 to 300 microns. Thermal stress (which can be a problem at low velocities) is prevented by proper thermal design. The highest SCIM-coated SOC cell efficiencies to date are 7.5% (AM1, AR) as compared to 10.5% (AM1, AR) for dip-coated SOC cells. Substantial improvements in cell efficiency are expected when high purity parts are installed in the SCIM-coater.

Schuldt, S. B.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Improved Silicon-Growth Chamber

Silicon-growth technique, based on coating ceramic substrates with thin layer of molten silicon solidifies to form polycrystalline film, modified to produce solar-cell quality silicon sheet.

Heaps, J. D.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Melt-Level Sensing in Silicon-Web Groowth

Laser beam reflected from silicon-melt surface onto position detector to monitor melt level during web growth. Silicon web production increased by synchronizing silicon melt replenishment with web growth rate.

Duncan, C. S.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Sampling of Silicon Powder for Impurity Analysis

Electron beam forms dense pellets of powdered silicon for Zeeman analysis. Sampling method focuses electron beam on submicron silicon powder. Process enhances quality control in production of low-cost silicon powder for semiconductor industry.

Yamakawa, K. A.↗
NASA NTRS1982

Microhardness studies on thin carbon films grown on P-type, (100) silicon

A program to grow thin carbon films and investigate their physical and electrical properties is described. Characteristics of films grown by rf sputtering and vacuum arc deposition on p type, (100) silicon wafers are presented. Microhardness data were obtained from both the films and the silicon via the Vickers diamond indentation technique. These data show that the films are always harder than the silicon, even when the films are thin (of the order of 1000 A). Vacuum arc films were found to contain black carbon inclusions of the order of a few microns in size, and clusters of inclusions of the order of tens of microns. Transmission electron diffraction showed that the films being studied were amorphous in structure.

Kolecki, J. C.↗
NASA NTRS1982

Bread board float zone experiment system for high purity silicon

A breadboard float zone experimental system has been established at Westech Systems for use by NASA in the float zone experimental area. A used zoner of suitable size and flexibility was acquired and installed with the necessary utilities. Repairs, alignments and modifications were made to provide for dislocation free zoning of silicon. The zoner is capable of studying process parameters used in growing silicon in gravity and is flexible to allow trying of new features that will test concepts of zoning in microgravity. Characterizing the state of the art molten zones of a growing silicon crystal will establish the data base against which improvements of zoning in gravity or growing in microgravity can be compared. 25 mm diameter was chosen as the reference size, since growth in microgravity will be at that diameter or smaller for about the next 6 years. Dislocation free crystals were growtn in the 100 and 111 orientations, using a wide set of growth conditions. The zone shape at one set of conditions was measured, by simultaneously aluminum doping and freezing the zone, lengthwise slabbing and delineating by etching. The whole set of crystals, grown under various conditions, were slabbed, polished and striation etched, revealing the growth interface shape and the periodic and aperiodic natures of the striations.

Kern, E. L.↗
NASA NTRS1982

Part 1: Silicon ingot casting. Heat Exchanger Method (HEM)

Directional solidification by the Heat Exchanger Method (HEM) is a viable approach for directional solidification of silicon ingots used for terrestrial solar cell applications. Some of the significant advances made during this phase of the program were: ingot size, 34 cm x 34 cm x 17 cm - 45 kg, usable material yield - 90%, solar cell efficiency averaged over the whole ingot - 85% of control CZ (35 kg ingot), very uniform resistivity over the boule, and cycle time for 36 kg ingots - 56 hours. Some of the problems encountered were growth rate decrease with increased ingot height, silicon carbide precipitates, and high dislocation density in HEM material. The silicon carbide is attributed to backstreaming of oil vapors from the vacuum pump; the high dislocation density is associated with the thermal history of the boule.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1982

Single crystal growth of upgraded metallurgical silicon by HEM for photovoltaic applications

Commercially available metallurgical grade (MG) silicon has high B and P content which is not reduced significantly by directional solidification. By choosing high purity raw materials for an experimental Submerged Electrode Arc Furnace, most of the impurities are reduced to 10 ppmw. Directional solidification of upgraded metallurgical grade (UMG) silicon by the Heat Exchanger Method (HEM) has produced 16 cm x 16 cm cross section ingots with nearly single crystal structure. The main problem encountered during directional solidification was SiC impurities dispersed through the structure. Solar cells fabricated from UMG silicon that was directionally solidified twice by HEM have shown up to 12.33% (am1) conversion efficiency.

Khattak, C. P.↗
NASA NTRS1983

Evaluation of the ion implantation process for production of solar cells from silicon sheet materials

The objective of this program is the investigation and evaluation of the capabilities of the ion implantation process for the production of photovoltaic cells from a variety of present-day, state-of-the-art, low-cost silicon sheet materials. Task 1 of the program concerns application of ion implantation and furnace annealing to fabrication of cells made from dendritic web silicon. Task 2 comprises the application of ion implantation and pulsed electron beam annealing (PEBA) to cells made from SEMIX, SILSO, heat-exchanger-method (HEM), edge-defined film-fed growth (EFG) and Czochralski (CZ) silicon. The goals of Task 1 comprise an investigation of implantation and anneal processes applied to dendritic web. A further goal is the evaluation of surface passivation and back surface reflector formation. In this way, processes yielding the very highest efficiency can be evaluated. Task 2 seeks to evaluate the use of PEBA for various sheet materials. A comparison of PEBA to thermal annealing will be made for a variety of ion implantation processes.

Spitzer, M. B.↗
NASA NTRS1983

Method of increasing minority carrier lifetime in silicon web or the like

A silicon dendrite is grown as a ribbon forming two silicon crystal layers which are separated by an interface layer which contains a large number of defects. Significant increase of minority carrier lifetime with homogeneous distribution at the outer surfaces of the two silicon crystal layers is achieved by processing the web in an atmosphere of a selected gas, e.g., oxygen, nitrogen or an inert gas, for about 30 minutes to several hours at a temperature preferably on the order of 900 to 1200 C.

Liu, J. K.↗
NASA NTRS1982

Materials characterization and fracture mechanics of a space grade dielectric silicone insulation

The present investigation is concerned with the DC 93-500 high voltage silicone insulation material employed to pot the gun and the collector end of a traveling wave tube (TWT) used on the Landsat D Satellite. The fracture mechanics behavior of the silicone resin was evaluated by measuring the slow crack velocity as a function of the opening mode of the stress intensity factor at +25 and -10 C, taking into account various uniaxial discrete strain values. It was found that the silicone resins slow crack growth is faster than that for a high voltage insulation polyurethane material at the same stress intensity factor value and room temperature.

Abdel-Latif, A. I.↗
NASA NTRS1983

Dynamic fracture toughnesses of reaction-bonded silicon nitride

The room-temperature dynamic fracture response of reaction-bonded silicon nitride is investigated using a hybrid experimental-numerical procedure. In this procedure, experimentally determined crack velocities are utilized to drive a dynamic finite-element code or dynamic finite-difference code in its generation mode in order to extract numerically the dynamic stress intensity factor of the fracturing specimen. Results show that the dynamic fracture toughness vs crack velocity relations of the two reaction-bonded silicon nitrides do not follow the general trend in those relations of brittle polymers and steel. A definite slow crack velocity during the initial phase of dynamic crack propagation is observed in reaction-bonded silicon nitride, which results in a nonunique dynamic fracture toughness vs crack velocity relation. In addition, it is found that a propagating crack will continue to propagate under a static stress intensity factor substantially lower than K(IC).

Kobayashi, A. S.↗
NASA NTRS1983

Theoretical study of silicon dicarbide

Silicon dicarbide was first observed in 1926 in spectra of cool carbon stars. The carrier of these bands around 5000 A was tentatively identified as SiC2 by Kleman (1956) who produced similar spectra by inserting silicon into the graphite tube of a King furnace heated to over 2500 K. This identification was strengthened by subsequent mass spectral studies which showed SiC2 as a major molecular component of vaporized silicon carbide. The present investigation is concerned with calculations which were initiated in an attempt to understand more recent astronomical observations of unidentified lines in the millimeter-wave region of the spectrum. The calculations were designed to determine the ground state equilibrium structure and to obtain vibrational and rotational constants. Calculations for estimating the positions and structure of low-lying electronic states were also performed. Self-consistent field (SCF) calculations were performed assuming a closed-shell electronic structure analogous to that in C3. Calculations were conducted for symmetric CSiC, and asymmetric SiCC forms.

Green, S.↗
NASA NTRS1983

Electrical characteristics of amorphous iron-tungsten contacts on silicon

The electrical characteristics of amorphous Fe-W contacts have been determined on both p-type and n-type silicon. The amorphous films were obtained by cosputtering from a composite target. Contact resistivities of 1 x 10 to the -7th and 2.8 x 10 to the -6th were measured on n(+) and p(+) silicon, respectively. These values remain constant after thermal treatment up to at least 500 C. A barrier height of 0.61 V was measured on n-type silicon.

Finetti, M.↗
NASA NTRS1983

Plasma-enhanced CVD silicon nitride antireflection coatings for solar cells

Multilayer plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) silicon nitride antireflection coatings were deposited on space quality silicon solar cells. Preliminary experiments indicated that multilayer coatings decreased the total reflectance of polished silicon from 35 percent to less than 3 percent over the spectral range 0.4-1.0 micron. The solar cell energy conversion efficiency was increased from an average of 8.84 percent to an average of 12.63 percent.

Johnson, C. C.↗
NASA NTRS1985

Silicon Formation for Solar Cells

Highly pure silicon obtained for solar cells by proposed technique that sprays liquid-sodium droplets into SiF4 gas. Resulting freely flowing powder of silicon and sodium fluoride will not adhere to reactor walls and easily transferred to melt separator to recover silicon.

Sancier, K.↗
NASA NTRS1983

Process Research On Polycrystalline Silicon Material (PROPSM)

The performance-limiting mechanisms in large-grain (greater than 1 to 2 mm in diameter) polycrystalline silicon solar cells were investigated by fabricating a matrix of 4 sq cm solar cells of various thickness from 10 cm x 10 cm polycrystalline silicon wafers of several bulk resistivities. Analysis of the illuminated I-V characteristics of these cells suggests that bulk recombination is the dominant factor limiting the short-circuit current. The average open-circuit voltage of the polycrystalline solar cells is 30 to 70 mV lower than that of co-processed single-crystal cells; the fill-factor is comparable. Both open-circuit voltage and fill-factor of the polycrystalline cells have substantial scatter that is not related to either thickness or resistivity. This implies that these characteristics are sensitive to an additional mechanism that is probably spatial in nature. A damage-gettering heat-treatment improved the minority-carrier diffusion length in low lifetime polycrystalline silicon, however, extended high temperature heat-treatment degraded the lifetime.

Culik, J. S.↗
NASA NTRS1984

RF sputtered silicon and hafnium nitrides as applied to 440C steel

Silicon nitride and hafnium nitride coatings were deposited on oxidized and unoxidized 440C stainless steel substrates. Sputtering was done in mixtures of argon and nitrogen gases from pressed powder silicon nitride and from hafnium metal targets. The coatings and the interface between the coating and substrate were investigated by X-ray diffractometry, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray analysis and Auger electron spectroscopy. Oxide was found at all interfaces with an interface width of at least 600 A for the oxidized substrates and at least 300 A for the unoxidized substrates. Scratch test results demonstrate that the adhesion of hafnium nitride to both oxidized and unoxidized 440C is superior to that of silicon nitride. Oxidized 440C is found to have increased adhesion, to both nitrides, over that of unoxidized 440C. Coatings of both nitrides deposited at 8 mtorr were found to have increased adhesion to both oxidized and unoxidized 440C over those deposited at 20 mtorr.

Grill, A.↗