Title :
Minority carrier lifetime improvement in p-type silicon by oxygen related centers gettering at low temperatures: application to the heterojunction solar cell processing
Author :
Ulyashin, Alexander ; Bilyalov, Renat ; Brück, Alexander ; Scherff, Maximilian ; Job, Reinhart ; Fahrner, Wolfgang ; Poortmans, Jef
Author_Institution :
Univ. of Hagen, Germany
Abstract :
The minority carrier lifetime improvement after thermal heating of different p-type Si substrates at /spl les/650/spl deg/C is studied as an initial technological step for heterojunction solar (HJ) cells processing. It is found that the effective lifetime in silicon substrates is essentially controlled by the oxygen and hydrogen-related centers. It is supposed that the observed enhancement of the effective lifetime in p-type substrates at heat treatments below 650/spl deg/C can be attributed to the hydrogen release from oxygen-related centers and to the gettering of impurities by the oxygen-related centers. An efficient application of the observed phenomena for heterojunction ITO/(n)a-Si:H/(p)c-Si solar cell processing is demonstrated for a middle level quality Cz Si substrates were the lifetime improved by the heat treatment.
Keywords :
aluminium; amorphous semiconductors; carrier lifetime; diffusion; elemental semiconductors; getters; heat treatment; impurity distribution; indium compounds; minority carriers; silicon; solar cells; titanium compounds; Czochralski Si substrate; ITO-Si-Si-Al:H; InSnO-Si-Si-Al:H; Si; amorphous-Si:H-c-Si solar cell; heat treatments; heterojunction solar cell processing; hydrogen related centers; impurity distribution; indium compounds; minority carrier lifetime; oxygen related centers; p-type Si substrates; silicon; thermal heating; titanium compounds;
Conference_Titel :
Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, 2003. Proceedings of 3rd World Conference on
Conference_Location :
Osaka, Japan
Print_ISBN :
4-9901816-0-3
