Photovoltaic cell manufacture: Device tosses out unusable PV wafers

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Silicon wafers destined to become photovoltaic cells can take a bruising through assembly lines, as they are oxidized, annealed, purified, diffused, etched, and layered to reach their destinies as efficient converters of the sun's rays into useful electricity. All those refinements are too much for five percent to 10 percent of the costly wafers. They have micro-cracks left over from incomplete wafer preparation, which causes them to break on the conveyors or during cell fabrication.

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