Minority carrier lifetime degradation and anneal in neutron irradiated litmum-diffusedn-type silicon

The observation of damage regions produced by neutron irradiation in lithium-doped silicon solar cells

“…The results of the annealing experiments carried out in the present work appear to be significantly different from those observed previously, from the recovery of electrical properties in neutron irradiated silicon by either Stein [20] or Passenheim and Naber [21]. Stein measured the effects of neutron damage at room temperature at doses up to 101~ neutrons/cm 2 on n-type float zone melted silicon (p _ 6 f2 cm) by the degradation of minority carrier life-times.…”

“…Stein measured the effects of neutron damage at room temperature at doses up to 101~ neutrons/cm 2 on n-type float zone melted silicon (p _ 6 f2 cm) by the degradation of minority carrier life-times. Upon annealing, recovery was found to occur over a broad temperature range from 330 to 500~ Passenheim and Naber [21] carried out similar minority carrier life-time measurements on lithium doped silicon and found almost complete recovery at 380~ It is again not possible to directly correlate the above results with the present work because of the wide differences in experimental conditions and starting material. However, it seems probable that the electrical property measurements are much more sensitive to more localised interactions between isolated neutron induced defects and interstitial impurities or doping atoms.…”