Aluminum gettering in single and multicrystalline silicon
- Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
Al gettering has been performed on integrated circuit (I.C.) quality silicon and a variety of single and multicrystalline silicon solar cell materials. The minority carrier diffusion length, Ln, has been used to quantify the gettering response. Vast differences in response to the Al gettering treatment are observed between the I.C. quality silicon and the solar cell materials. The I.C. silicon generally responds well while the solar cell silicon performance progressively degrades with increasing gettering temperature. Preliminary data shows that by performing a Rapid Thermal Annealing treatment prior to the Al gettering, an improved or further degraded Ln emerges in solar cell material depending on the material`s manufacturer. We explain these observed phenomena by suggesting that Al gettering in solar cell silicon is an impurity emission-limited process while for I.C. quality silicon it is diffusion limited.
- Research Organization:
- National Renewable Energy Lab., Golden, CO (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 415147
- Report Number(s):
- NREL/SP--413-8250; CONF-9508143--Extd.Absts.; ON: DE95009278
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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