Monocrystalline silicon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A silicon ingot

Monocrystalline silicon (or "single-crystal silicon", "single-crystal Si", "mono c-Si", or just mono-
Si) is the base material for silicon chips used in virtually all electronic equipment today. Mono-Si
also serves as photovoltaic, light-absorbing material in the manufacture of solar cells.
It consists of silicon in which the crystal lattice of the entire solid is continuous, unbroken to its
edges, and free of any grain boundaries. Mono-Si can be prepared intrinsic, consisting only of
exceedingly pure silicon, or doped, containing very small quantities of other elements added to
change its semiconducting properties. Most silicon monocrystalsare grown by the Czochralski
process into ingots of up to 2 meters in length and weighing several hundred kilogrammes. These
cylinders are then sliced into thin wafers of a few hundred microns for further processing.
Single-crystal silicon is perhaps the most important technological material of the last few
decades—the "silicon era",[1] because its availability at an affordable cost has been essential for
the development of the electronic devices on which the present day electronic and informatic
revolution is based.
Monocrystalline silicon differs from other allotropic forms, such as the non-crystallineamorphous
silicon—used in thin-film solar cells, and polycrystalline silicon, that consists of small crystals,
also known as crystallites.

Contents
[hide]
  1 Mono-Si in electronics
 2 Mono-Si in solar cells
o 2.1 Market-share
o 2.2 Efficiency
o 2.3 Appearance
 3 See also
 4 References

Mono-Si in electronics[edit]
The monocrystalline form is used in the semiconductor device fabrication since grain boundaries
would bring discontinuities and favor imperfections in the microstructure of silicon, such
as impurities and crystallographic defects, which can have significant effects on the local
electronic properties of the material. On the scale that devices operate on, these imperfections
would have a significant impact on the functionality and reliability of the devices. Without the
crystalline perfection, it would be virtually impossible to build Very Large-Scale Integration (VLSI)
devices (figure below), in which millions (up to billions, circa 2005[2]) of transistor-based circuits,
all of which must reliably be working, are combined into a single chip to get e.g. a
microprocessor. Therefore, the electronics industry has invested heavily in facilities to produce
large single crystals of silicon.

Mono-Si in solar cells[edit]

Global market-share in terms of annual production by PV technology since 1990

Monocrystalline silicon is used in the manufacturing of high performancesolar cells. Since,

however, solar cells are less demanding than microelectronics for as concerns structural
imperfections, monocrystaline solar grade (Sog-Si) is often used.
Market-share[edit]
In 2013, monocrystalline solar cells had a market-share of 36 percent, that translated into the
production of 12,600 megawatts of photovoltaic capacity,[3] and ranked second behind the
somewhat cheaper sister-technology of polycrystalline silicon.[4]
Efficiency[edit]
Lab efficiencies of 25.0 percent for mono-Si cells are the highest in the commercial PV market,
ahead of polysilicon with 20.4 percent and all established thin-film technologies namely, CIGS
cells (19.8%), CdTe cells (19.6%), and a-Si cells(13.4%).[5]
Solar module efficiencies—which are always lower than those of their corresponding cells—
crossed the 20 percent mark for mono-Si in 2012; an improvement of 5.5 percent over a period of
ten years. The thickness of a silicon wafer used to produce a solar cell also decreased
significantly, requiring less raw material and therefore less energy for its manufacture. Increased
efficiency combined with economic usage of resources and materials was the main driver for the
price decline over the last decade.[6]
Appearance[edit]

The crystalline structure of silicon forms a diamond cubic.

VLSI devices fabricated by Intel on a single-crystal silicon wafer

Solar panel made of octagonal monocrystalline silicon cells

Comparison of solar cells: multi-Si(left) and mono-Si (right).

See also[edit]
  Solid-state (electronics)

References[edit]
1. Jump up^ W.Heywang, K.H.Zaininger, Silicon: the semiconductor
material, in Silicon: evolution and future of a technology, P.Siffert,
E.F.Krimmel eds., Springer Verlag, 2004.
2. Jump up^ Peter Clarke, Intel enters billion-transistor processor
era, EE Times, 14 October 2005
3. Jump up^ Photovoltaics Report, Fraunhofer ISE, July 28, 2014,
pages 18,19
4. Jump up^ S.R.Wenham, M.A.Green, M.E.Watt.,
R.Corkish, Applied Photovoltaics, Earthscan, 2007, Chapt. 2
5. Jump up^ Photovoltaics Report, Fraunhofer ISE, July 28, 2014,
pages 24, 25
6. Jump up^ Photovoltaics Report, Fraunhofer ISE, July 28, 2014,
pages 23 and 29
Categories:
 Semiconductor materials
 Crystals
 Silicon solar cells
Navigation menu
 Create account

 Log in
 Article
 Talk
 Read
 Edit
 View history
Go

 Main page
 Contents
 Featured content
 Current events
 Random article
 Donate to Wikipedia
 Wikipedia store
Interaction
 Help
 About Wikipedia
 Community portal
 Recent changes
 Contact page
Tools
 What links here
 Related changes
 Upload file
 Special pages
 Permanent link
 Page information
  Wikidata item
 Cite this page
Print/export
 Create a book
 Download as PDF
 Printable version
Languages
 Español
 Italiano
 Русский
 Türkçe
Edit links
 This page was last modified on 29 March 2015, at 15:34.
 Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License;
additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of
Use andPrivacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.