Participation to EU PVSEC 2023

Participation to EU PVSEC 2023

CEA participated to EU PVSEC 2023 and presented a poster.

About 35% by mass of silicon are lost during wafer slicing. This silicon-kerf should be recycled, for photovoltaic or other applications, but is contaminated by carbon, oxygen and metals coming from the cutting liquid, the beam, or the diamond wire.

Thanks to cutting liquid and beam composition change, a three-N purity of raw silicon-kerf has been reached at the exit of wafer slicing, without modifying the cutting process. Moreover, additional soft chemical treatment, followed by thermal treatment can reduce carbon concentration and increase silicon-kerf purity to four-N. An improvement of a factor one hundred compared to classical industrial silicon-kerf.