Abstract
It is shown that in P type silicon bicrystals and multicrystals grown from the melt, the electrical activity of grain boundaries (GBs) expressed by a potential barrier EB and an interfacial recombination velocity S depends on the thermal treatments applied to the samples. The type of GB has only a weak influence on the variations of S and EB which increase inhomogeneously during the treatment. The presence of precipitates indicates that the origin of recombination centres is essentially extrinsic. It is assumed that oxygen, which is the main impurity present in all the investigated samples, could be at the origin of GB activation directly by precipitates or after segregation of impurities (fast diffusers) by these precipitates. Dislocations are also involved in GB activation.
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