Understanding the Applications of High-End Quartz Glass

Quartz glass raw materials are the main raw materials for manufacturing high-performance materials such as silicon dioxide thin films, tin quartz, quartz glass, solar cells, and optical communication cables. They are also the main plastic raw materials in the semiconductor industry and have high added value in the preparation of monocrystalline silicon and polycrystalline silicon, etc. They are an important foundation for today's high-tech products and a necessary condition for the sustainable development of a country's high technology, playing an important role in the national economy.

　　I. Quartz Glass Raw Materials

Quartz glass is an amorphous material with a single component of silicon dioxide. Its manufacture requires the use of high-purity silica sand as a raw material. The high-purity silica sand produced from its silicon dioxide is the raw material for the preparation of quartz glass.

Currently, there are two main production methods for quartz glass: one is the horizontal vapor deposition method. The other is the vertical vapor deposition method. The vertical vapor deposition method for producing synthetic quartz glass has the characteristics of high process stability, good appearance quality of finished products, and high ultraviolet transmittance, and has become the mainstream process route for producing synthetic quartz glass raw materials in the world.

　　II. Application Fields of Quartz Glass

　　Quartz glass is known as the "crown" in glass materials. Its comprehensive performance is diverse among glass materials, and it is widely used in optical communication, semiconductors, solar energy, aerospace, and other fields.

　　1. Optical Communication Field

　　With the urgent increase in information flow and the demand for high-capacity direct-through circuits, the rapid development of the fiber optic industry has been promoted, and the growth of its upstream main raw materials, quartz preforms and quartz tubes, has also been promoted.

According to relevant statistics, in the past 5 years, the sales scale of China's fiber optic industry has increased significantly, and the growth rate has shown an upward trend, with a year-on-year increase of 62% in 13 years. With the further requirements of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China for China's Internet access capabilities, the demand for the fiber optic market will continue to heat up, driving the rapid development of the quartz glass industry.

　　2. Semiconductor Field

　　High-purity quartz materials, due to their temperature resistance, acid resistance, low expansion, and excellent light transmittance, meet the stringent requirements of the semiconductor industry for alkali metal and heavy metal content in vehicle materials, making it an indispensable material in this field.

　　With the refinement of the process, quartz materials have been more widely used in semiconductor production. For example, it is the main material for acquiring light film substrates in flat panel display technology and the core material for high-power lighting tools.

　 3. Photovoltaic Field

　　Since solar energy is the only energy that can guarantee the future needs of mankind, countries have continuously developed solar photovoltaic component technology in order to more effectively exploit and utilize solar energy, making full use of this energy.

　　Quartz glass crucibles, with their clean, homogeneous, and high-temperature resistance properties, are important consumables and process consumables in the silicon rod-related production processes of solar energy crystal purification and battery plates.