alt Hacker NewsI'm curious what the thermal management system on this looks like. On one hand, vacuum being in essence a perfect insulator works in favor of keeping the silicon hot for the very long time it takes to pull a boule while requiring very little energy. On the other hand, you have to make sure the control electronics don't also heat up to 1000C. I'm also curious how you keep the molten silion separate from the crystal without gravity keeping it in the crucible. I bet a lot of interesting engineering going on here.
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HPsquared • last Saturday at 9:50 AM
Something like a vacuum flask, I imagine. Vacuum is a very good insulator already and you minimise radiative heat transfer (infrared glow) by making a surface shiny and metallic usually (low emissivity)
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Vacuum is only a nearly perfect insulator until a few hundred °C. After that, radiation dominates over every other form of heat exchange, and it stops making any difference.
A couple of meters long steel rod with a dissipator on the end can easily keep electronics at Earth surface temperatures even if you heat the other end to 1000°C.