| Compaction and Sintering of Silicon Powders beds (Co-Si-Si-Po) is a new process to produce multicrystalline silicon wafers. 50 - 90 mm diameter wafers with thicknesses between 300 and 600 µm of crystalline silicon were produced by combining high temperature treatment and compacting technique of microsized silicon powders through a very simple two-step process. Moulds of different forms were used to prodiuce differnce shapes of the wafers and surface texturization by printing. High temperature and pressure conditionswere able to induce a very complete solidification trough sintering mechanisms. Subsequent thermal treatment was applied to the wafer in order to get a complete densification and a grain growing in the mm range. Two different recrystallisation processes were used: a direct annealed in the hot pressing furnace. For the second process the hot pressed samples were annealed using Zone Melting Recristalisation (ZMR400) at Fraunhofer ISE Freiburg. In both cases treatments enables the growing of grains up to 1mm. Microstructure changes have been studied using electron and optical microscopy. Electrical properties were shown to be substancially improved after recrystalliztion annealing. |