Minority carrier lifetime in plasma-textured silicon wafers for solar cells

G. Kumaravelu; M. M. Alkaisi; D. MacDonald; J. Zhao; B. Rong; A. Bittar

doi:10.1016/j.solmat.2004.07.015

Minority carrier lifetime in plasma-textured silicon wafers for solar cells

G. Kumaravelu, M. M. Alkaisi^*, D. MacDonald, J. Zhao, B. Rong, A. Bittar

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

22 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In this work a comparison between plasma-induced defects by two different SF₆ texturing techniques, reactive ion etching (RIE) and high-density plasma (HDP) is presented. It is found that without any defect-removal etching (DRE), the minority carrier lifetime is the highest for the HDP technique. After DRE, the minority carrier lifetime rises as high as 750 μs for both RIE- and HDP-textured wafers at an excess carrier density of 1×10¹⁵ cm^-3. The measured lifetimes correspond to an implied one-sun open-circuit voltage of around 680 mV compared to about 640 mV before DRE for the HDP-textured wafers. FZ silicon 〈1 0 0〉 wafers were used in this study. We also noted that in the RIE process, the induced defect density was significantly lower for wafers etched at 300 K than those etched at 173 K.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	99-106
Number of pages	8
Journal	Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells
Volume	87
Issue number	1-4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solmat.2004.07.015
Publication status	Published - May 2005

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title = "Minority carrier lifetime in plasma-textured silicon wafers for solar cells",

abstract = "In this work a comparison between plasma-induced defects by two different SF6 texturing techniques, reactive ion etching (RIE) and high-density plasma (HDP) is presented. It is found that without any defect-removal etching (DRE), the minority carrier lifetime is the highest for the HDP technique. After DRE, the minority carrier lifetime rises as high as 750 μs for both RIE- and HDP-textured wafers at an excess carrier density of 1×1015 cm-3. The measured lifetimes correspond to an implied one-sun open-circuit voltage of around 680 mV compared to about 640 mV before DRE for the HDP-textured wafers. FZ silicon 〈1 0 0〉 wafers were used in this study. We also noted that in the RIE process, the induced defect density was significantly lower for wafers etched at 300 K than those etched at 173 K.",

keywords = "Minority carrier lifetime, Reactive ion etching, Silicon solar cell, Surface texturing",

author = "G. Kumaravelu and Alkaisi, {M. M.} and D. MacDonald and J. Zhao and B. Rong and A. Bittar",

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T1 - Minority carrier lifetime in plasma-textured silicon wafers for solar cells

AU - Kumaravelu, G.

AU - Alkaisi, M. M.

AU - MacDonald, D.

AU - Zhao, J.

AU - Rong, B.

AU - Bittar, A.

PY - 2005/5

Y1 - 2005/5

N2 - In this work a comparison between plasma-induced defects by two different SF6 texturing techniques, reactive ion etching (RIE) and high-density plasma (HDP) is presented. It is found that without any defect-removal etching (DRE), the minority carrier lifetime is the highest for the HDP technique. After DRE, the minority carrier lifetime rises as high as 750 μs for both RIE- and HDP-textured wafers at an excess carrier density of 1×1015 cm-3. The measured lifetimes correspond to an implied one-sun open-circuit voltage of around 680 mV compared to about 640 mV before DRE for the HDP-textured wafers. FZ silicon 〈1 0 0〉 wafers were used in this study. We also noted that in the RIE process, the induced defect density was significantly lower for wafers etched at 300 K than those etched at 173 K.

AB - In this work a comparison between plasma-induced defects by two different SF6 texturing techniques, reactive ion etching (RIE) and high-density plasma (HDP) is presented. It is found that without any defect-removal etching (DRE), the minority carrier lifetime is the highest for the HDP technique. After DRE, the minority carrier lifetime rises as high as 750 μs for both RIE- and HDP-textured wafers at an excess carrier density of 1×1015 cm-3. The measured lifetimes correspond to an implied one-sun open-circuit voltage of around 680 mV compared to about 640 mV before DRE for the HDP-textured wafers. FZ silicon 〈1 0 0〉 wafers were used in this study. We also noted that in the RIE process, the induced defect density was significantly lower for wafers etched at 300 K than those etched at 173 K.

KW - Minority carrier lifetime

KW - Reactive ion etching

KW - Silicon solar cell

KW - Surface texturing

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JO - Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells

JF - Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells

IS - 1-4

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Minority carrier lifetime in plasma-textured silicon wafers for solar cells

Abstract

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