Direct correlation of transition metal impurities and minority carrier recombination in multicrystalline silicon
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720 (United States)
- Laboratoire de Photoelectricite des Semi-Conducteurs, Case 231, University of Marseille, 13397 Marseille Cedex 20 (France)
Impurity and minority carrier lifetime distributions were studied in as-grown multicrystalline silicon used for terrestrial-based solar cells. Synchrotron-based x-ray fluorescence and the light beam induced current technique were used to measure impurity and lifetime distributions, respectively. The purpose of this work was to determine the spatial relation between transition metal impurities and minority carrier recombination in multicrystalline silicon solar cells. Our results reveal a direct correlation between chromium, iron, and nickel impurity precipitates with regions of high minority carrier recombination. The impurity concentration was typically 5{times}10{sup 16}thinspatoms/cm{sup 2}, indicating the impurity-rich regions possess nanometer-scale precipitates. These results provide the first direct evidence that transition metal agglomerates play a significant role in solar cell performance. {copyright} {ital 1998 American Institute of Physics.}
- OSTI ID:
- 636128
- Journal Information:
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 72, Issue 26; Other Information: PBD: Jun 1998
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Direct correlation of solar cell performance with metal impurity distributions in polycrystalline silicon using synchrotron-based x-ray analysis
Interactions of structural defects with metallic impurities in multicrystalline silicon