Proton Cleaving Silicon
Posted:
Thu Mar 15, 2012 2:10 amby Jerry
This is a pretty neat way to cleave silicon to thinner sheets without having to waste material with saws:
http://www.twincreekstechnologies.com/t ... erion.html
Re: Proton Cleaving Silicon
Posted:
Thu Mar 15, 2012 3:35 amby johnf
Hey Jerry
welcome to my world
I believe I'm the first person to do this with aluminium using He ions --normally the He leaches out of the Al lattice @ normal temps but I did it with the Al cooled to -179 degrees C
you need a fluence of ions above 10^16-17 /cm^2 to achieve this.
PS the silicon in the video is a standard technique in the industry, it pays to have the right orientation of the wafer otherwise channelling will make a mess of it.
I'll post a sem pic I took of the peeling Al layer
Re: Proton Cleaving Silicon
Posted:
Thu Mar 15, 2012 6:23 amby Jerry
How flat of a surface will this technique make? For solar cells I can't imagine it really matters though.
Re: Proton Cleaving Silicon
Posted:
Thu Mar 15, 2012 9:13 amby Doug Coulter
I'd bet it's pretty flat, but probably not "single atom" crystal surface. As you say, it would hardly matter for making big sloppy diodes for solar panels. For those, you don't even need single crystal anyway, none of mine are.
This is what a business would call a "moat" - a barrier to competition. You've either got this thing or you don't, and if you don't, you can't compete in the same markets. Stock traders get all excited about things like that.