We investigated the effect of the grain boundary (GB) character of multicrystalline Si (mc‐Si) on the efficiency of external and internal gettering of impurities during phosphorus diffusion gettering (PDG). We utilized seed crystals with an artificially designed GB configuration to grow mc‐Si ingots with different artificial GB characters. PDG combined with an originally developed multiple‐cycle gettering technique at low temperature was introduced on intentionally Fe‐contaminated mc‐Si samples to enhance external and internal gettering. A significant positive PDG effect was observed after PDG combined with the multiple‐cycle technique, as evidenced by the increase in lifetimes after PDG. A bright cloud‐like photoluminescence signal around contaminated GBs was observed for artificial Σ5‐GBs and tilt‐GBs after PDG, suggesting the enhancement of the internal gettering efficiency by leaving a cleaner area around the GBs. This result suggests the importance of the control of crystal defect character as well as impurities in mc‐Si ingots, which could strongly affect the PDG efficiency. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. We investigated the effect of the grain boundary (GB) character of multicrystalline Si (mc‐Si) on the efficiency of external and internal gettering of impurities during phosphorus diffusion gettering (PDG). We utilized seed crystals with an artificially designed GB configuration to grow mc‐Si ingots with different artificial GB characters. PDG combined with an originally developed multiple‐cycle gettering technique at low temperature was introduced on intentionally Fe‐contaminated mc‐Si samples to enhance external and internal gettering. This result suggests the importance of the control of crystal defect character as well as impurities in mc‐Si ingots, which could strongly affect the PDG efficiency.


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    Title :

    Effect of grain boundary character of multicrystalline Si on external and internal (phosphorus) gettering of impurities



    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2016




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English



    Classification :

    BKL:    53.36 Energiedirektumwandler, elektrische Energiespeicher