Barrier Evaluation by Linearly Increasing Voltage Technique Applied to Si Solar Cells and Irradiated Pin Diodes

Abstract

Technique for barrier evaluation by measurements of current transients induced by linearly increasing voltage pulse based on analysis of barrier and diffusion capacitance changes is presented. The components of the barrier capacitance charging and generation/recombination currents are discussed. Different situations of the impact of deep center defects on barrier and diffusion capacitance changes are analyzed. Basics of the profiling of layered junction structures using the presented technique are discussed. Instrumentation for implementation of this technique and for investigations of the steady-state bias infra-red illumination and temperature dependent variations of the barrier capacitance charging and generation/recombination currents are described. Applications of this technique for the analysis of barrier quality in solar cells and particle detectors fabricated on silicon material are demonstrated.

Spectroscopy of radiation traps by temperature dependent photoconductivity and generation currents in Si

“…1(a). The transients for a reverse biased junction are composed of barrier capacitance charging i c (t) (as the initial phase of the BELIV transient) and generation i g (t) (in the rearward stage of the transient) current components [5,8]. These components and their sum are described as…”

“…Barrier capacitance and generation current transient measurements are implemented by using the BE-LIV technique [5,8]. The BELIV measurement circuit consists of a sample which is connected in a series with a 50 Ω load resistor and a generator of linearly increasing voltage (LIV).…”

“…In this work, barrier capacitance, carrier recombination, generation and trapping parameters have been studied employing the barrier evaluation by linearly increasing voltage (BELIV) [5] and microwave probed photoconductivity transient (MW-PC) [6] techniques. A study of temperature dependent excess carrier lifetime variations has been carried out on the just irradiated and annealed samples in order to identify the prevailing radiation defects and to predict trap behaviour under thermal treatments.…”

Spectroscopy of Deep Traps in Cu2S-CdS Junction Structures

“…The barrier evaluation by linearly increasing voltage (BELIV) pulsed technique [ 16 , 17 ] was applied to separate the junction structures by the controlling of free carrier densities and generation currents within the CdS base region. Three types of samples had been distinguished by using the barrier capacitance characteristics of the junctions.…”

Fluence dependent variations of barrier charging and generation currents in neutron and proton irradiated Si particle detectors

“…Injection current transients and their analysis become more complicated for forward biasing of a diode. The latter analysis will be published elsewhere [12].…”