Influence of aluminium doping on high purity quartz glass properties.

High purity natural quartz is used as raw material for the manufacture of quartz glass crucibles for solar-grade silicon ingots production. One key challenge for cost-effective ingot pulling is to maximise the ability of the crucible to withstand the process conditions (, silicon load and temperature about 1500 °C) without deformation. In order to improve this glass property, aluminium was coated into the raw quartz materials.