The variation with illumination of the grain boundary (GB) barrier height EB and of the effective recombination velocity Seff is calculated by means of a self-consistent procedure which takes into account the bending of the minority carrier quasi-Fermi level in the GB space-charge region and in the GB quasi-neutral region. The GB interface states have been assumed to be uniformly distributed in a half-filled band whose width and position in the band gap can vary. Seff is nearly proportional to exp(EB/kT), only when EB is sufficiently low. For high EB, Seff is limited by the thermal velocity. The influence of the density of interface states and the grain doping concentration has been studied. The experimental results obtained with Silso–Wacker polycrystalline silicon show that the grain boundaries present different behaviors.

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