Ultrasound-assisted handling force reduction during the solar silicon wafers production

S Saffar; A Abdullah; S Gouttebroze; Z L Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.ultras.2013.12.010

Ultrasound-assisted handling force reduction during the solar silicon wafers production

Ultrasonics. 2014 Apr;54(4):1057-64. doi: 10.1016/j.ultras.2013.12.010. Epub 2014 Jan 4.

Authors

S Saffar¹, A Abdullah², S Gouttebroze³, Z L Zhang⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Structural Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway.
² Mechanical Engineering Faculty, Amirkabir University of Technology, 424, Hafez Avenue, Tehran, Iran.
³ SINTEF Materials and Chemistry, NO-0314 Oslo, Norway.
⁴ Department of Structural Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway. Electronic address: zhiliang.zhang@ntnu.no.

PMID: 24434116
DOI: 10.1016/j.ultras.2013.12.010

Abstract

Surface adhesion between wet wafers poses great challenges for silicon wafer handling. It has been shown that both the shear and normal handling forces of the solar silicon wafers can be dramatically reduced by using the ultrasound energy. Approximately 20 and 5 times reduction in horizontal and vertical forces were achieved by as low power as 10W, and a good agreement was found between the measured values and the predictions of a simple model for the effect of longitudinal vibration we developed.

Keywords: Friction reduction; Handling; Silicon wafer; Ultrasonic transducer.