Talk:Polycrystalline silicon

Opening heading
"But prices for solar-grade silicon, which have leapt from around $9 per kilo in 2000 to $25 last year and $60 this month, are threatening to put the brakes on the annual growth rates of 30 percent to 40 percent the industry has seen since 1997." Opps, it look like the price too fast due to inadequate supply

Link #2 is not working :( Keethraxx 23:18, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

laser crystallization
Does this have anything to do with the topic at hand? It appears to be limited to a-Si, not poly-Si. Maury 20:24, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Polycrystalline silicon rod picture
Why did the photo of a polycrystalline silicon rod have to be replaced with a lower-quality scan image? Warut 19:16, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Since no reason has been given, I'll bring back the photo. Warut 04:29, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

The picture looks as if it has been rendered with blender. It has pretty noisy shadows that look very cycles like. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.87.238.229 (talk) 21:47, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Carbon footprint of polysilicon manufacturing?
Is there data regarding carbon emissions in the manufacturing of polysilicon? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ncf109 (talk • contribs) 09:32, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

whole sentence?
First paragraph, last sentence:


 * Processes by which single crystals are grown (see Czochralski process, Bridgman technique, Float-zone silicon).

Something is missing here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.55.71.177 (talk) 23:28, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Fixed. Materialscientist (talk) 23:33, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Crystal or polycrystal
I will restore the previous name of the article, "Polycrystalline silicon", if nobody objects. Perhaps in photovoltaics crystalline cells means both mono- and polycrystalline cells (called also "multicrystalline"), to distiguish them from thin-film cells. But usually crystalline silicon means monocrystalline, particularly in electronics, where monocrystalline silicon is by far the most important material (and, coversely, the most important use of silicon is electronics). --GianniG46 (talk) 23:25, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * In photovoltaic polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) is a raw material for producing of single-crystal (sc-Si) or mutlicrystalline (mc-Si) ingots. At least it was true two or three years ago, actually it looks mismatched, maybe due this article on Wikipedia. All three pictures of poly-Si are correct, including information that sc-Si is made from poly-Si (but mc-Si too).Reing (talk) 08:16, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved. In doing this move the old history was added back in since the article had roots in the contributions here. I did not dig through everything, but this looks like some stuff was moved to support the view of a banned user that everything about solar and its manufacturing needed a new article. If a unifying article is needed, so be it, but any text copied should be clearly moved following the associated policies. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:53, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Crystalline silicon → Polycrystalline silicon — This article speaks of polycrystalline silicon. Crystalline silicon usually (and particularly in electronics) means monocrystalline silicon. Only in photovoltaics sometimes "Crystalline Si" is used to indicate both mono and poly Si cells, as opposed to amorphous Si and thin film cells, since in photovoltaics (but not at all in electronics) mono and poly cells are almost interchangeable, apart from quality. Polycrystalline silicon was the former name of this page. Since this name was changed, a lot of links to monocrystal Si erroneously point here. I have alread informally posted this proposal here a few days ago (See Crystal or polycrystal below.) | Relisting billinghurst  sDrewth  07:01, 15 July 2010 (UTC) |  GianniG46 (talk) 13:17, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Survey

 * Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with  or  , then sign your comment with  . Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.


 * Split and restore split off poly to its own article, and restore/rebuild the overview article. (which can also cover nanocrystalline, and semiamorphous, etc) 76.66.193.119 (talk) 01:51, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Any additional comments:
 * In reviewing this proposal, I check through the history, and it looks like this article started talking about both mono- and poly- eg. It sounds to me that there needs an extra backwards step to look at both what is the article, what is missing and what should be where. billinghurst  sDrewth  07:00, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Mono-Si now has its own page, which contains all is and was here about mono. And this article speaks only of poly-Si, apart from the due initial comparison with mono. Also the previous title was Polycrystalline silicon, and if you look at the links of this page to the wiki articles on other languages, you can see that all refer to poly-Si. I think that the error in the title has brought about by the fact that in photovoltaics "Crystal Silicon" is opposed to amorphous Si and to thin-film cells, and that mono and poly PV cells and panels are similar. But silicon is not only PV, and in electronics mono is the material.


 * So, I think it is essential to change back the title to the previous one, "Polycrystalline silicon". --GianniG46 (talk) 08:07, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Prices and Future Production
This link http://www.greentechmedia.com/research/report/polysilicon-2012-2016/ discusses an expected shakeout in the industry after 2012. Maybe a footnote or update needed? --Rkeene0517 (talk) 16:47, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Use of polysilicon layer as a gate in integrated technologies
In modern integrated circuit technologies (I've worked with 500nm, 130nm, 65nm), a polysilicon layer is present and has various roles on integrated circuits: it forms the gate of modern MOSFETs, alongside an oxide layer and the channel in the silicon bulk (instead of it being metal-metal oxide-silicon), is used for some local interconnects, can be doped particularly to form poly resistors, etc. (one reference I found, and the MOSFET article very briefly mentions polysilicon use for the gate.)

I believe this perspective is missing from this article, whose focus is primarily on the material, solar panel and industry aspect. If the "polysilicon" used as a first layer above monocrystalline silicon wafers in integrated circuit design refers to the same polycrystalline structure, I believe a small section discussion it in IC design, describing what it's used for, why it's favoured over metal/diffusions/etc., and the basic concept of the deposition process is appropriate; if it is a different structure of a like name, perhaps another article and a disambiguation link is warranted.

As my expertise is circuit design, not fabrication technology, I don't feel comfortable writing such material. I may later if I can find good credible sources on it, but in the meantime, I thought I might leave a note here in case anyone with expertise or who might have good sources on fabrication within reach passes by. Laogeodritt [ Talk 00:28, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Tons of polysilicon per MW
Per this 2002 paper,, it is about 10-13 tons. The article states about five tons. Jim1138 (talk) 09:38, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

"Siemens process" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Siemens process. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 September 25 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:20, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Update worldwide production amount
The second paragraph of this article currently says “worldwide production of about 230,000 tonnes in 2013.” 2013 was over 10 years ago; given the growth in solar power over the last decade, someone knowledgeable on this topic should update this figure. rdl381 (talk) 01:36, 3 June 2024 (UTC)