Low‐Temperature Photoluminescence Investigation of Light‐Induced Degradation in Boron‐Doped CZ Silicon

Abstract

Light‐induced degradation (LID) in boron‐doped Czochralski grown (CZ) silicon is a severe problem for silicon devices such as solar cells or radiation detectors. Herein, boron‐doped CZ silicon is investigated by low‐temperature photoluminescence (LTPL) spectroscopy. An LID‐related photoluminescence peak is already found while analyzing indium‐doped p‐type silicon samples and is associated with the ASi–Sii defect model. Herein, it is investigated whether a similar peak is present in the spectra of boron‐doped p‐type CZ silicon samples. The presence of change in the photoluminescence signal intensity due to activation of the boron defect is investigated as well. Numerous measurements on boron‐doped samples are made. For this purpose, samples with four different boron doping concentrations are analyzed. The treatments for activation of the boron defect are based on the LID cycle. During an LID cycle, an additional peak or shoulder neither in the areas of the boron‐bound exciton transverse acoustic and nonphonon‐assisted peaks (BTA, BNP) nor in the area of the boron‐bound exciton transverse optical phonon‐assisted peak (BTO) is found. The defect formation also does not lead to a lower photoluminescence (PL) intensity ratio BTO(BE)/ITO(FE).