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Porous silicon gettering

Conference ·
; ;  [1]
  1. National Renewable Energy Lab., Golden, CO (United States); and others

We have studied a novel extrinsic gettering method that utilizes the very large surface areas, produced by porous silicon etch on both front and back surfaces of the silicon wafer, as gettering sites. In this method, a simple and low-cost chemical etching is used to generate the porous silicon layers. Then, a high-flux solar furnace (HFSF) is used to provide high-temperature annealing and the required injection of silicon interstitials. The gettering sites, along with the gettered impurities, can be easily removed at the end the process. The porous silicon removal process consists of oxidizing the porous silicon near the end the gettering process followed by sample immersion in HF acid. Each porous silicon gettering process removes up to about 10 {mu}m of wafer thickness. This gettering process can be repeated so that the desired purity level is obtained.

Research Organization:
National Renewable Energy Lab., Golden, CO (United States)
OSTI ID:
415139
Report Number(s):
NREL/SP--413-8250; CONF-9508143--Extd.Absts.; ON: DE95009278
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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