Interactions of structural defects with metallic impurities in multicrystalline silicon

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Multicrystalline silicon is one of the most promising materials for terrestrial solar cells. It is critical to getter impurities from the material as well as inhibit contamination during growth and processing. Standard processing steps such as, phosphorus in-diffusion for p-n junction formation and aluminum sintering for backside ohmic contact fabrication, intrinsically possess gettering capabilities. These processes have been shown to improve L{sub n} values in regions of multicrystalline silicon with low structural defect densities but not in highly dislocated regions. Recent Deep Level Transient Spectroscopy (DLTS) results indirectly reveal higher concentrations of iron in highly dislocated regions while further work suggests that the release of impurities from structural defects, such as dislocations, is the rate limiting step for gettering in multicrystalline silicon. The work presented here directly demonstrates the relationship between metal impurities, structural defects and solar cell performance in multicrystalline silicon. Edge-defined Film-fed Growth (EFG) multicrystalline silicon in the as-grown state and after full solar cell processing was used in this study. Standard solar cell processing steps were carried out at ASE Americas Inc. Metal impurity concentrations and distributions were determined by use of the x-ray fluorescence microprobe (beamline 10.3.1) at the Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The sample was at atmosphere so only elements with Z greater than silicon could be detected, which includes all metal impurities of interest. Structural defect densities were determined by preferential etching and surface analysis using a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) in secondary electron mode. Mapped areas were exactly relocated between the XRF and SEM to allow for direct comparison of impurity and structural defect distributions.