Search Menu
DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
Search Scholarly Publications

Title: Recombination activity of grain boundaries in high-performance multicrystalline Si during solar cell processing

Abstract

Here in this work, we applied internal quantum efficiency mapping to study the recombination activity of grain boundaries in High Performance Multicrystalline Silicon under different processing conditions. Wafers were divided into groups and underwent different thermal processing, consisting of phosphorus diffusion gettering and surface passivation with hydrogen rich layers. After these thermal treatments, wafers were processed into heterojunction with intrinsic thin layer solar cells. Light Beam Induced Current and Electron Backscatter Diffraction were applied to analyse the influence of thermal treatment during standard solar cell processing on different types of grain boundaries. The results show that after cell processing, most random-angle grain boundaries in the material are well passivated, but small-angle grain boundaries are not well passivated. Special cases of coincidence site lattice grain boundaries with high recombination activity are also found. Based on micro-X-ray fluorescence measurements, a change in the contamination level is suggested as the reason behind their increased activity. Published by AIP Publishing.

Authors:
 [1];  [2];  [3]; ORCiD logo [4];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [1]
+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. Norwegian Univ. of Science and Technology (NTNU),Trondheim (Norway). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering
  2. Inst. for Energy Technology (IFE), Kjeller (Norway). Dept. for Solar Energy
  3. SINTEF Materials and Chemistry, Trondheim (Norway)
  4. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
  5. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Advanced Photon Source (APS)
  6. Karlstad Univ., Karlstad (Sweden)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); Norwegian Research Council (NRC)
OSTI Identifier:
1461333
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC02-06CH11357; 1122374
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Journal of Applied Physics
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 123; Journal Issue: 5; Journal ID: ISSN 0021-8979
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics (AIP)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE

Citation Formats

Adamczyk, Krzysztof, Søndenå, Rune, Stokkan, Gaute, Looney, Erin, Jensen, Mallory, Lai, Barry, Rinio, Markus, and Di Sabatino, Marisa. Recombination activity of grain boundaries in high-performance multicrystalline Si during solar cell processing. United States: N. p., 2018. Web. doi:10.1063/1.5018797.
Copy to clipboard
Adamczyk, Krzysztof, Søndenå, Rune, Stokkan, Gaute, Looney, Erin, Jensen, Mallory, Lai, Barry, Rinio, Markus, & Di Sabatino, Marisa. Recombination activity of grain boundaries in high-performance multicrystalline Si during solar cell processing. United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5018797
Copy to clipboard
Adamczyk, Krzysztof, Søndenå, Rune, Stokkan, Gaute, Looney, Erin, Jensen, Mallory, Lai, Barry, Rinio, Markus, and Di Sabatino, Marisa. Wed . "Recombination activity of grain boundaries in high-performance multicrystalline Si during solar cell processing". United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5018797. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1461333.
Copy to clipboard
@article{osti_1461333,
title = {Recombination activity of grain boundaries in high-performance multicrystalline Si during solar cell processing},
author = {Adamczyk, Krzysztof and Søndenå, Rune and Stokkan, Gaute and Looney, Erin and Jensen, Mallory and Lai, Barry and Rinio, Markus and Di Sabatino, Marisa},
abstractNote = {Here in this work, we applied internal quantum efficiency mapping to study the recombination activity of grain boundaries in High Performance Multicrystalline Silicon under different processing conditions. Wafers were divided into groups and underwent different thermal processing, consisting of phosphorus diffusion gettering and surface passivation with hydrogen rich layers. After these thermal treatments, wafers were processed into heterojunction with intrinsic thin layer solar cells. Light Beam Induced Current and Electron Backscatter Diffraction were applied to analyse the influence of thermal treatment during standard solar cell processing on different types of grain boundaries. The results show that after cell processing, most random-angle grain boundaries in the material are well passivated, but small-angle grain boundaries are not well passivated. Special cases of coincidence site lattice grain boundaries with high recombination activity are also found. Based on micro-X-ray fluorescence measurements, a change in the contamination level is suggested as the reason behind their increased activity. Published by AIP Publishing.},
doi = {10.1063/1.5018797},
journal = {Journal of Applied Physics},
number = 5,
volume = 123,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Feb 07 00:00:00 EST 2018},
month = {Wed Feb 07 00:00:00 EST 2018}
}
Copy to clipboard
Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5018797
Copyright Statement
Other availability
Search WorldCat Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 26 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

Figures / Tables:

Figure 1 Figure 1: Representative IQE maps from the bottom of the ingot after different processing steps, compared to EBSD of the gettered sample (lower left). The black, horizontal lines in the IQE maps are the contact fingers. The white line in the IQE maps shows the position of the linescans discussedmore » in Figure 2.« less
All figures and tables (7 total)
Save / Share:
Export Metadata
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.

Works referenced in this record:

Effects of grain boundary on impurity gettering and oxygen precipitation in polycrystalline sheet silicon
journal, July 2003

  • Lu, Jinggang; Wagener, Magnus; Rozgonyi, George
  • Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 94, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.1578699

Grain control in directional solidification of photovoltaic silicon
journal, December 2012

Recombination Strength of Dislocations in High-Performance Multicrystalline/Quasi-Mono Hybrid Wafers During Solar Cell Processing
journal, November 2017

  • Adamczyk, Krzysztof; Søndenå, Rune; You, Chang Chuan
  • physica status solidi (a), Vol. 215, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1002/pssa.201700493

The emergence of high-performance multi-crystalline silicon in photovoltaics
journal, June 2017

High performance multicrystalline silicon: Grain structure and iron precipitation
journal, October 2017

  • Autruffe, Antoine; M'hamdi, Mohammed; Schindler, Florian
  • Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 122, Issue 13
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.4995338

Transition-metal profiles in a multicrystalline silicon ingot
journal, February 2005

  • Macdonald, Daniel; Cuevas, Andrés; Kinomura, A.
  • Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 97, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.1845584

Electron-beam-induced current study of grain boundaries in multicrystalline silicon
journal, November 2004

  • Chen, J.; Sekiguchi, T.; Yang, D.
  • Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 96, Issue 10
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.1797548

Metal precipitation at grain boundaries in silicon: Dependence on grain boundary character and dislocation decoration
journal, July 2006

  • Buonassisi, T.; Istratov, A. A.; Pickett, M. D.
  • Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 89, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.2234570

Variation of dislocation etch-pit geometry: An indicator of bulk microstructure and recombination activity in multicrystalline silicon
journal, May 2014

  • Castellanos, S.; Kivambe, M.; Hofstetter, J.
  • Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 115, Issue 18
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.4876445

Dislocation generation at near-coincidence site lattice grain boundaries during silicon directional solidification
journal, February 2015

Performance of a high-resolution x-ray microprobe at the Advanced Photon Source
conference, January 2000

  • Cai, Z.
  • The 11th US national synchrotron radiation instrumentation conference (SRI99), AIP Conference Proceedings
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.1291754

LBIC Investigations of the Lifetime Degradation by Extended Defects in Multicrystalline Solar Silicon
journal, December 1998

Recombination in ingot cast silicon solar cells
journal, January 2011

  • Rinio, Markus; Yodyungyong, Arthit; Keipert-Colberg, Sinje
  • physica status solidi (a), Vol. 208, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1002/pssa.201084022

Grain Boundaries Analysis in Polycrystalline Silicon by tem
journal, October 1982

  • Komninou, F.; Karakostas, Th.; Bleris, G. L.
  • Le Journal de Physique Colloques, Vol. 43, Issue C1
  • DOI: 10.1051/jphyscol:1982102

Obtaining a higherVoc in HIT cells
journal, January 2005

  • Taguchi, Mikio; Terakawa, Akira; Maruyama, Eiji
  • Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications, Vol. 13, Issue 6
  • DOI: 10.1002/pip.646

Dependence of phosphorus gettering and hydrogen passivation efficacy on grain boundary type in multicrystalline silicon
journal, December 2013

  • Karzel, P.; Ackermann, M.; Gröner, L.
  • Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 114, Issue 24
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.4856215

Microstructure of multicrystalline silicon seeded by polysilicon chips and fluidized bed reactor granules
journal, May 2016

EELS and <I>Ab-Initio</I> Study of Faceted CSL Boundary in Silicon
journal, January 2011

On a More Restrictive Geometric Criterion for “Special” CSL Grain Boundaries
journal, May 1998

Impurity control in high performance multicrystalline silicon
journal, June 2017

  • Stokkan, Gaute; Marisa, Di Sabatino; Søndenå, Rune
  • physica status solidi (a), Vol. 214, Issue 7
  • DOI: 10.1002/pssa.201700319

Defect generation, advanced crystallization, and characterization methods for high-quality solar-cell silicon
journal, October 2012

  • Di Sabatino, Marisa; Stokkan, Gaute
  • physica status solidi (a), Vol. 210, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1002/pssa.201200639

Carrier Recombination Activity and Structural Properties of Small-Angle Grain Boundaries in Multicrystalline Silicon
journal, October 2007

  • Chen, Jun; Sekiguchi, Takashi
  • Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 46, Issue 10A
  • DOI: 10.1143/JJAP.46.6489

Research on efficiency limiting defects and defect engineering in silicon solar cells - results of the German research cluster SolarFocus
journal, December 2010

  • Riepe, Stephan; Reis, Isolde E.; Kwapil, Wolfram
  • physica status solidi (c), Vol. 8, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1002/pssc.201000338
    Sort by:
    [ × clear filter / sort ]

    Works referencing / citing this record:

    Hydrogenation in multicrystalline silicon: The impact of dielectric film properties and firing conditions
    journal, October 2019

    • Sio, Hang Cheong; Phang, Sieu Pheng; Nguyen, Hieu T.
    • Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications, Vol. 28, Issue 6
    • DOI: 10.1002/pip.3199

    Role of Impurities in Silicon Solidification and Electrical Properties Studied by Complementary In Situ and Ex Situ Methods
    journal, July 2019

    • Ouaddah, Hadjer; Périchaud, Isabelle; Barakel, Damien
    • physica status solidi (a), Vol. 216, Issue 17
    • DOI: 10.1002/pssa.201900298

    Evolution of the light sensitive defects in high performance multicrystalline silicon wafers
    journal, February 2019

    • Søndenå, Rune; Wiig, Marie Syre
    • Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 125, Issue 8
    • DOI: 10.1063/1.5079496

    Strain building and correlation with grain nucleation during silicon growth
    journal, September 2019

      Sort by:
      [ × clear filter / sort ]

      Figures / Tables found in this record:

      Figure 1 (p. 3)figure
      Figure 2 (p. 3)figure
      Figure 3 (p. 4)figure
      Figure 4 (p. 5)figure
      Figure 5 (p. 5)figure
      Table 1 (p. 6)table
      Table 2 (p. 6)table
        [ × clear filter / sort ]
        Figures/Tables have been extracted from DOE-funded journal article accepted manuscripts.

        Similar Records in DOE PAGES and OSTI.GOV collections: