Reduction of Trapping and Recombination in Upgraded Metallurgical Grade Silicon: Impact of Phosphorous Diffusion Gettering
N. Dasilva-Villanueva, S. Catal\'an-G\'omez, D. Fuertes Marr\'on, J.J., Torres, M. Garc\'ia-Corpas, C. del Ca\~nizo
TL;DR
This study investigates how phosphorous diffusion gettering reduces defect-related traps in upgraded metallurgical grade silicon, improving carrier lifetime and potentially enhancing solar cell efficiency.
Contribution
It provides new insights into defect removal mechanisms in UMG silicon through PDG, comparing different silicon types and analyzing trap dynamics and oxygen's role.
Findings
PDG effectively removes slow traps in mc-Si UMG.
Carrier lifetime improves up to 140 microseconds after PDG.
No trapping observed in mono-UMG samples.
Abstract
Upgraded metallurgical grade (UMG) silicon (Si) has raised interest as an alternative material for solar cells due to its low cost, low environmental impact and low CAPEX. Maximum cell efficiencies at the level of those obtained from high purity poly-Si have been reported. However, a higher defect density and the compensated doping character result in UMG-based cell efficiencies varying over wider ranges in frequency distribution charts. In this report we characterize mc-Si UMG samples with different defect densities, comparing them with mono-Si UMG and commercial high-performance mc-Si samples, analysing the impact of carrier trapping by means of photoconductance (PC) decay measurements, and its evolution after applying a phosphorous diffusion gettering (PDG) process. When analyzing the decay time constant of the PC measurements, slow (66.8+-14.3 ms) and fast (16.1+-3.5 ms) traps are…
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