Journal of Crystal Growth 360 (2012) 76–80

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Journal of Crystal Growth

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jcrysgro

Numerical studies on a type of mechanical stirring in directional

solidification method of multicrystalline silicon for photovoltaic applications
S. Dumitrica a, D. Vizman a,n, J.-P. Garandet b, A. Popescu a
a
Physics Faculty, West University of Timisoara, Bd. V. Parvan 4, 300223 Timisoara, Romania
b
CEA, LITEN, Institut National de l’Energie Solaire, 50 Avenue du Lac Léman, 73377 Le Bourget du Lac Cedex, France

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Available online 18 January 2012 With the increase of the dimensions of multicrystalline silicon ingots obtained by directional solidification,
Keywords: it is necessary to propose new methods allowing to tailor the convection within the melt adapted for large
A1. Computer simulation scale crucibles. Melt stirring is widely used to influence the melt flow and the shape of the solid–liquid
A1. Fluid flow interface in crystal growth processes.
A1. Stirring Therefore, the objective of this paper is to study by numerical methods the forced convection induced
A2. Ingot casting method by an idealized stirrer on the melt flow and interface shape in a directional solidification furnace in order to
B2. Multicrystalline silicon see the potential of such a device.
Numerical simulations were carried out for a pilot scale furnace configuration (38  38  40 cm3). The
computational domain used for the 3D-simulations consists of silicon melt and crystal. Time-dependent
computations were carried out with the software STHAMAS3D.
It was obtained that, the stirrer’s rotation leads to a strong increase of both the melt convection and the
S–L interface deflection.
& 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction raising again the question of whether turbulent flows take

According to a study [1] made by European Association of
Photovoltaic industry, the solar energy could cover till 2020, up to
12% of needs of electric energy of European Union. Crystalline
silicon, either mono- or multi-crystalline, currently represents
almost 90% of the photovoltaic energy production. Directional
solidification is the technique with highest market share in the
production of crystalline silicon for photovoltaic applications.
In the frame of the race towards cost reduction, two major trends
will shape the developments of the field in the years to come:
– ever increasing sizes: today’s research is on 800 kg ingots and
1  1 m2 crucible sizes, but there is no reason to think that this
represents an ultimate limit;
– use of silicon feedstock of lesser purity than standard electro-
nic grade material.
In this frame, a number of issues that had been tackled empiri-
cally in the past will need to be addressed using a scientific approach.
Among them, the control of convection will become a major issue:
– with the advent of large scale crucibles, the implementation
of an unidirectional heat flux will be increasingly difficult,
resulting in a detrimental curvature of the solid–liquid interface,
n
Corresponding author. Tel./fax: þ 40 256 592 250.
E-mail address: vizman@physics.uvt.ro (D. Vizman).
place during solidification. An increased convection may also
have an impact on the cohesion of the crucible coatings: the
release of particles within the melt should be avoided since
they may act as sites favoring the nucleation of spurious grains
ahead of the solidification front and causes severe mechanical
stresses if they are engulfed in the growing crystal [2–4];
– with the use of feedstock of lesser purity, the achievement of a
total mixing regime in the melt allowing for an optimal segrega-
tion of the impurities at the end of the ingot while keeping a high
growth rate for productivity reasons will require careful adjust-
ments [5,6].
Due to skin depth issues, electromagnetic control of melt flow
can have a limited effect on heat and mass transfer in the center
region of large scale Si ingots grown from melt [7,8]. It is therefore
necessary to analyze new methods allowing the tailoring of the
convection within the melt adapted for large scale silicon ingots.
One option could be mechanical stirring using a stirrer made of the
same material as the crucible. Some studies have investigated the
effect of mechanical stirring upon the properties of different alloys
(Al–Si and Mg alloy), during various casting processes [9–12].
In order to analyze the potential of mechanical stirring on the
melt control in directional solidification of multicrystalline silicon
numerical simulations are carried on in the present contribution.
It is well established that numerical simulation can play an
important role in the design and optimization of crystal growth

0022-0248/$ - see front matter & 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jcrysgro.2012.01.011
 S. Dumitrica et al. / Journal of Crystal Growth 360 (2012) 76–80 77

processes because of their low cost and high flexibility in model-
ing various experimental configurations [13,14].
Our aim is to study by numerical methods the forced convec-
tion induced by an idealized stirrer on the melt flow and interface
shape in directional solidification method of multicrystalline
silicon in order to see the potential of such a device.
Numerical simulations were carried out for a pilot scale
furnace configuration, that correspond to the standard G2 (second
generation) of the photovoltaic industry. State of the art industrial
practice now focuses on G5 and G6 (5th and 6th generations)
crucibles, but the G2 size is still used in pilot scale furnaces as
representative of the industrial conditions [15]. In addition to
crystal growth issues, the G2 size also has potential for applica-
tions in the purification of upgraded metallurgical grade silicon
by directional solidification (38  38  40 cm3).
2. Numerical model
Numerical simulation has been made for a pilot scale furnace
with crucible dimensions of 38 cm  38 cm  40 cm. The compu-
tational domain used for the local 3D-simulations consists of
silicon melt and crystal and is shown in Fig. 1. Time-dependent
computations were carried out with the software STHAMAS3D.
The melt flow is described by the three-dimensional equations
for mass, momentum and heat transfer, taking into account the
Boussinesq approximation for a Newtonian incompressible fluid:
r! u ¼0 ð1Þ
! sidered for the given crystallization velocity:
@u ! ! ! !
r þ rð u rÞ u mr2 u ¼ rp f
@t
 
@T ! 2
rC p þð u rÞT kr T ¼ 0
@t
!
where r is the fluid density, u is the flow velocity, p the pressure,
!
C p the heat capacity, k the thermal conductivity, f is source term
for the momentum. The source term can be written as:
! ! ! heat exchange with the environment was taken into account. The
f ¼ f nat þ f rot ð4Þ
with:
! !
f nat ¼ rðT ref Þ g bðTT ref Þ
– corresponding to the component of natural convection, and
! calculating the time integrals. No turbulence models are considered
f rot , corresponding to the component of forced convection
produced by the stirrer.
In the present work, where the objective is on the understanding
of the stirrer influence on melt flow and interface shape, the
following assumptions have been made:
a) the form of the stirring device was considered to be cylindrical, of
diameter D¼8 cm, centered on the domain axis and immersed in
the melt to a depth of 15 cm. It can be rotated at different
angular velocities during the crystal growth process (Fig. 1);
b) the stirring device is not considered as being ‘‘physically’’ in
the melt, but the effect of its rotation has been considered
by imposing an azimuthal volume force in each point of the
region where the stirrer is located. The force has the following
form:
! ! !
f rot ¼ ðroo Þ  r ð6Þ
!
where o is the angular velocity corresponding to the stirrer
!
rotation. Defining r ¼ 9 r 9 as the distance of that point to the
stirrer’s axis, as shown in Fig. 2, the module of the stirring
force can be expressed as:
Therefore:
(
! rro2 , r rD=2
j f rot j ¼ ,
0, r 4 D=2
were D is the stirrer diameter.
The heat transfer in the solid is governed by conduction, and at
the liquid–solid interface latent heat production has been con-
 
ð2Þ
kS rT S kLrT L ¼ vg rS DH ð7Þ
where kS and kL are the thermal conductivities of solid and melt,
ð3Þ vg is the pulling rate set to 10 mm/h for our simulations and DH is
the latent heat.
The temperature has been considered fixed at the crucible walls,
corresponding to a temperature gradient of 10 K/cm in the crystal
and 3 K/cm in the melt. At the free surface of the melt a radiative
reference temperature for radiation was set to 1785 K.
The time dependent calculations have been made using STHA-
MAS3D software which was developed at the Crystal Growth
Laboratory in Erlangen and it was already used for convection
simulations in Czochralski [14] and directional solidification config-
ð5Þ
urations [13]. STHAMAS3D’s numerical procedure is based on the
finite volume method, and the implicit Euler method is used for
in our numerical scheme.

Melt
H Vt

Crystal
B
L
! ! ! !
Fig. 2. Azimuthal volume force: f rot ¼ ðroo Þ  r , where o is the angular velocity
Fig. 1. Schematic view of the crucible and the stirrer. !
and r is the radius.
78 S. Dumitrica et al. / Journal of Crystal Growth 360 (2012) 76–80
The computational block-structured non-orthogonal grid is
subdivided in two blocks with a local grid refinement at the walls
in order to resolve the boundary layers. The mesh in the melt
consists typically of 350.000 control volumes, which is sufficient
to resolve the main features of the flow. In [13] the dependence of
z-component of the flow velocity along the central vertical line for
different grid size was analyzed. It was showed that at this grid
refinement level there is almost no dependence of the solution on
the size of the control volume.
To determine the solid–liquid interface position and form, use
has been made of a phase tracking procedure, according to which
after every time step the grid is deformed in such way that the
boundary between melt and solid fits to the melting temperature. In
order to obtain a realistic solution starting from an arbitrary initial
solution at least 800 s real time should be computed with a time
step of 0.1 s. Therefore the 3D time dependent simulations have
been made on a 20 nods HP-AND-Opteron 2.2 GHz cluster.
3. Results and discussions
Computations have been performed for the melt flow and for
the rotation frequencies of the stirring device of 5, 10, 20, 30,
40 rpm and a pulling velocity of 10 mm/h.
In Fig. 3, particle tracking plots are presented in a region
located 7 cm above the S–L interface. Paraview software was used
for visualization and a point seed in the center of the region was
considered. In the absence of stirrer rotation, as the crucible has a
squared form, it is expected to see this reflected in the melt flow
symmetry. This appears clearly in Fig. 3(a). In this case, convec-
tion rolls (cylindrically shaped), generated by the convexity of the
s-l interface, and characteristic of Bridgman or Vertical Gradient
Freeze methods, can be observed in the main part of the cavity.
Near the corners, these convection rolls have a different behavior
Fig. 3. Particle tracking at 7 cm above the S–L interface for different rotation rate of the stirrer: (a) 0 rpm, (b) 5 rpm, (c) 10 rpm and (d) 30 rpm.
in comparison with a cylindrical crucible configuration where
they have a complete toroidal shape.
Even at a low frequency of 5 rpm the effect of melt mixing near
S–L interface can be seen (Fig. 3(b)) and the melt flow has a
stronger azimuthal component. Increasing the stirrer rotation, the
mixing effect near the S–L interface increases as can be seen in
Fig. 3(c) and (d).
In a vertical section in the middle of the computational domain
(xOz section), when no stirrer rotation is present, there are two
main convection zones: one near the S–L interface and one near
the melt free surface (Fig. 4(a)). The driving forces in these
areas are generated by the lateral gradients at the S–L interface
(associated to the interface deflection) and at the free surface,
which are a consequence of the global heat transfer in the
furnace.
When the mixing device is rotated with a frequency of 5 rpm,
the mixing in the vertical section is improved, but the melt flow
remains mostly stratified (Fig. 4(b)). Increasing the rotation
frequency, the asymmetry of melt flow in vertical section
increases and the melt mixing is much stronger (Fig. 4(c) and (d)),
with maximum velocity for 0 rpm: 0.7 cm/s; 5 rpm: 5 cm/s; 10 rpm:
10 cm/s; 30 rpm: 25.5 cm/s. This effect should be understood having
in mind that the interface shape and deflection is changing with
stirrer rotation rate (see Fig. 6).
Also it has to be noted that at rotation speeds which correspond
to frequencies of 5, 10 and 20 rpm there is a direct proportionality
between the frequency and the maximum azimuthal velocity (Vmax)
of the melt (Fig. 5). In order of magnitude terms, this is indicative of
a balance between the azimuthal force, producing the motion, and
the inertia:
! ! V 2max
ro2 D=2 ¼ r9ð V max rÞ V max 9  r ð8Þ
d
 S. Dumitrica et al. / Journal of Crystal Growth 360 (2012) 76–80 79

Fig. 4. Velocity field in xOz section for different rotation rate of the stirrer: (a) 0 rpm, (b) 5 rpm, (c) 10 rpm and (d) 30 rpm.

Fig. 6. Interface deflection for different rotation rates.

Fig. 5. Relation between Vmax and the rotation rate.

where d is the length scale of primary inertial vortex. These yields:
V 2max  o2 ðdD=2Þ
Assuming d is independent of o, the proportionality between
Vmax and o follows. Taking d¼D/2, a reasonable choice considering
the simulation results, the predictions of Eq. (9) are reported in Fig. 5
along with the experimental values. The agreement between the
two sets of data is excellent below 20 rpm, but some deviations with
ð9Þ
the proportionality law are observed at frequencies of 30 and
40 rpm (Fig. 5). Also the axis of the main vortex is no more along
the center axis of the crucible for higher rotation frequency
(430 rpm) (see Fig. 3). An explanation of this fact might be the
80 S. Dumitrica et al. / Journal of Crystal Growth 360 (2012) 76–80
counterbalance of the azimuthal force by natural convection, which
becomes more intense as the interface deflection increases (Fig. 6),
or possibly by the fact that the modification of the flow structure
impacts on the value of d. Nevertheless, the agreement with the
predictions of the simple scaling law remains acceptable.
Let us now come back on the influence of stirring on the
interface shape. If no stirrer rotation is present, the S–L interface
is slightly convex toward the melt. With the increase of stirrer
rotation the interface deflection increases (Fig. 6). For 5 rpm the
increase of interface deflection is rather small but for 40 rpm
the interface deflection is almost 6 cm. This behavior is due to the
stronger convection in the vertical section, generated by the
higher stirrer rotations, which facilitate the transport of hot melt
from upper parts to the S–L interface.
4. Conclusions
Mechanical stirring is an interesting option in the control of
melt convection in the directional solidification growth of large
scale silicon ingots. In order to analyze the influence of a stirrer
rotation on melt flow and the liquid–solid interface shape,
numerical simulations have been performed for an idealized
stirrer configuration and for different stirrer rotation rates. It
was shown that even a small stirrer rotation (5 rpm) can improve
the level of mixing in the melt and thus play an important role on
the temperature fields in the melt and in the crystal. For small
rotation rates (less than 20 rpm) a uniform azimuthal rotation is
produced and the rotational driving force is balanced by inertia.
A major effect of the stirrer rotation is the increase of
deflection of S–L interface, which can be quite important for high
rotation rates. The shape of the stirrer can also play a role in melt
flow. It will be the aim of future investigations to analyze
different shapes of the stirrer (e.g. helicoidally shaped stirrers)
and different geometrical parameters (e.g. size and location in
the melt).
Acknowledgments
Financial support under the grant CONSIL C1-02 in the frame of
the cooperation agreement between IFA-Romania and CEA-France.
This work was supported by the strategic grant POSDRU/
CPP107/DMI1.5/S/78421, Project ID78421 (2010), co-financed by
the European Social Fund within the Sectorial Operational Pro-
gram Human Resources Development 2007–2013.
Dr. Jochen Friedrich and Prof. Dr. G. Mueller, Fraunhofer
Institute IISB, for the permanent support in the development of
STHAMAS3D software.
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