Production of Mono Dispersed Silicon Balls for Solar Cells by Intermittent Electromagnetic Pinch Force

A new method to produce mono dispersed silicon balls is proposed.In this method,mono dispersed droplets are formed directly from a capillary jet of molten silicon.The silicon droplets fall down in a cooling tower and they are solidified into mono dispersed balls.An electromagnetic pinch force is applied intermittently to the jet of molten silicon in order to generate fluctuations of equal interval on the surface of the jet.As the fluctuations grow,the molten silicon jet is broken up into droplets according to a frequency of the pinch force,if the frequency is lower than a critical value derived by a liner instability theory.Numerical simulation of the breakup of the capillary jet is carried out by a multiphase fluid flow analysis with an electromagnetic force analysis.The simulation results are compared with model experiments and the agreement between the two is good.