What is high purity quartz?
High-purity quartz is a rare high-tech strategic mineral resource in the world. It is an irreplaceable mineral raw material for manufacturing high-tech quartz glass and a rare universal high value-added mineral resource needed for strategic emerging industries. Based on the opinions of researchers and At the current international technical level, we can call quartz (silica) with a purity of ω ≥ 3 N~5 N and ω (iron 2O3) <10×10-6 as high-purity quartz. 6 N to 7 N is called ultra-pure quartz. High purity quartz.
High-purity quartz products are widely used in electric light sources, optical fiber communications, solar cells, semiconductor integrated circuits, precision optical instruments, medical appliances, aerospace and other high-tech industries. It plays an important role in the development of a country’s science and technology and is a Resources of strategic importance.
High purity quartz has different application fields according to its content. Among them, content from 99.5% to 99.99% is used in the light source industry, content above 99.99% is used in high-end optical devices and laser devices, and content from 99.995% to 99.9999% is used in semiconductors , photovoltaic and other industries.
1 Semiconductor industry
The semiconductor industry is the foundation of the global information industry, and the wide application of semiconductor products has promoted the arrival of the information and intelligence era.
Chip manufacturing mainly consists of four parts: single crystal growth, wafer processing and manufacturing, integrated circuit wafer and post-packaging production. Single crystal growth requires the use of quartz crucibles and quartz devices.
A large number of auxiliary materials are used in etching, such as quartz glass, diffusion, oxidation, annealing and other steps of wafer processing, such as high-purity quartz products such as quartz sheets, quartz rings, and quartz boats. The diffusion step is to combine boron and phosphorus and other elements diffuse into the silicon wafer in a quartz furnace tube at approximately 1000°C.
2 Optical fiber industry
The communication industry is an “information industry high-speed”, and high-speed intelligent “tubes” of information made of high-purity quartz optical fibers will provide basic guarantees for Industry 4.0 and Internet+.
Silica optical fiber is a very thin filament with a diameter of less than 8 mm. Digital data is transmitted in the form of light through optical fibers. It is widely used in the field of communications, microelectronics and optoelectronic devices. Compared with other transmission media (cable or copper line), silica fiber has the characteristics of stronger resistance to electromagnetic interference, anti-corrosion ability, better frequency bandwidth and capacity, and reduced resource loss.
According to different materials, silica glass fiber can be divided into pure silica glass fiber and doped silica fiber. Doped silica fiber mainly includes rare earth doped silica fiber, fluorine doped silica fiber and nitrogen-doped silica fiber. Rare earth-doped silica fiber has good laser performance, fluorine-doped silica fiber and nitrogen-doped silica fiber have radiation resistance. Structural design, refractive index distribution, doping Complex processes, pre-irradiation treatment, post-irradiation treatment, etc. can improve its space radiation resistance.
Therefore, optical fibers are not only used in traditional communications fields, but also in special high-energy radiation environments, such as internal detection of fusion reactors, amplifiers for highly distributed data networks in aerospace, broadband superluminescent sources for fiber optic gyroscopes, Fiber lasers that provide signals for fission reactors, etc.
In addition, high-purity quartz also has certain optical properties. It can form a polarized laser beam. Using high-purity quartz as a window, fiber lasers are manufactured with prisms, filters and timing equipment. High-quality quartz crystals are also used in optical instruments prisms and lenses. It can be seen that optical fibers made of high-purity quartz have very high added value.
3 Photovoltaic industry
Photovoltaic is the abbreviation of solar power generation system. As a sustainable green industry, photovoltaics has attracted more and more attention. In recent years, the application cost has been greatly reduced, and it has become rapidly popular in the civilian field. High-purity quartz is one of the key raw materials in the photovoltaic industry, Its main application forms include quartz crucibles, quartz tubes and various quartz equipment.
Solar quartz crucible is a consumable material used in the photovoltaic industry and is a consumption container for large-diameter monocrystalline and polycrystalline silicon products.
4 Optics and light source fields
Optical quartz glass has the characteristics of high temperature resistance, corrosion resistance, low expansion rate, and is widely used in the field of optics. High-purity quartz glass is used in the production of telescope lenses and laboratory optical equipment, communication equipment, diffraction lenses, projection displays, and for scanning Equipment and optics for printers, lasers, as well as cameras and ultra-flat TV screens, flame control equipment, etc.
Electric light source glass can be divided into potash-lime glass, lead-containing silica glass, borosilicate glass, aluminosilicate glass and quartz glass according to chemical composition. High-purity quartz glass is used as raw material to produce high-pressure mercury lamps in Among the electric light source products, metal halide lamps, halogen dock lights, xenon lamps, car lights, etc. , can withstand high temperatures and provide high transmission properties.
