Powerful recombination centers resulting from reactions of hydrogen with carbon–oxygen defects in n‐type Czochralski‐grown silicon

Vaqueiro-Contreras, Michelle; Markevich, V. P.; Halsall, Matthew P.; Peaker, А. R.; Santos, P.; Coutinho, J.; Öberg, Sven; Мурин, Л. И.; Falster, R.; Binns, Jeff; Monakhov, E. V.; Svensson, B. G.

doi:10.1002/pssr.201700133

Cited by 16 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…This provides an evidence of the involvement of a single hydrogen atom into the defects, which give rise to the H 1 and H 2 traps. Finally, a good correlation has been found between the intensity of the LVM band with its maximum at 1104 cm −1 observed in the infrared absorption spectra of carbon and oxygen rich samples subjected to different heat‐treatments in the temperature range 550–700 °C and magnitudes of the MCTS signals due to the H 1 /H 2 traps in similarly heat‐treated neighboring samples, which were hydrogenated and prepared for MCTS measurements . The band at 1104 cm −1 is related to an LVM of the CO complex .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 58%

“…Furthermore, it has been found that the H 1 /H 2 traps anneal out in the temperature range from 150 to 200 °C and their elimination resulted in significant improvement of lifetime in silicon wafers (see Refs. and ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…We have recently reported the formation of powerful recombination centers in n‐type silicon as a result of the reaction between hydrogen, carbon and oxygen species . Accordingly, hole traps H 1 and H 2 at 0.38 and 0.36 eV above E v , respectively, were detected in Cz‐Si subject to wet etching, remote plasma exposure and silicon nitride deposition, and they were assigned to COH complexes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

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Theory of a carbon‐oxygen‐hydrogen recombination center in n‐type Si

Santos

Coutinho

Öberg³

et al. 2017

Physica Status Solidi (a)

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This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.We have recently found that in-diffusion of hydrogen into n-type Si crystals containing oxygen and carbon impurities can result in the formation of powerful recombination centers (M. Vaqueiro-Contreras et al., to appear in PSS RRL). Here, we describe a combination of first-principles calculations and electrical measurements to investigate the composition, structure, electrical activity and recombination mechanism of a carbon-oxygen-hydrogen complex (COH) in Si. We found a defect comprising a carbon-oxygen complex connected to an H atom whose location depends on the charge state of the complex, and showing a calculated acceptor level at E v þ 0.3 eV, a few meV away from the observations. Bistable carbon-oxygen-hydrogen complex in silicon. Carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and silicon atoms are shown in gray, red, black, and white, respectively.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 58%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

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Theory of a carbon‐oxygen‐hydrogen recombination center in n‐type Si

Santos

Coutinho

Öberg³

et al. 2017

Physica Status Solidi (a)

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“…127,238 Recent publications have highlighted the role of hydrogen in performance limiting defects in n-type Cz silicon through the formation of a COH complex. 239,240 A thorough review of hydrogen-related defects is presented by A. Peaker et al in Chapter 2 of Fleetwood et al 241 Of particular importance for silicon solar cells, an increasing number of publications are highlighting the likely role of hydrogen in activating LeTID. [242][243][244][245][246][247] In particular, many of the behaviours of LeTID are consistent with the behaviour of hydrogen, such as the increased introduction of hydrogen with increasing firing temperature, 227 the ability to generate H 0 in the dark at low temperatures and induce the degradation without excess minority carriers, and the ability to cause the degradation in practically any commercially available silicon material for solar cells.…”

Section: Advanced Hydrogenation Of Silicon Solar Cellsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of advanced hydrogenation processes for silicon solar cells via an improved understanding of the behaviour of hydrogen in silicon

Hallam

Hamer

Wenham

et al. 2020

Progress in Photovoltaics

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The understanding and development of advanced hydrogenation processes for silicon solar cells are presented. Hydrogen passivation is incorporated into virtually all silicon solar cells, yet the properties of hydrogen in silicon are still poorly understood. This is largely due to the complex behaviour of hydrogen in silicon and its ability to exist in many different forms in the lattice. For commercial solar cells, hydrogen is introduced into the device through the deposition of hydrogen-containing dielectric layers and the subsequent metallisation firing process. This process can readily passivate structural defects such as grain boundaries but is ineffective at passivating numerous defects in silicon solar cells such as the boron-oxygen complex, responsible for light-induced degradation in p-type Czochralski silicon. This difficulty is due to the need to first form the boron-oxygen defect and also due to atomic hydrogen naturally occupying low-mobility and low-reactivity charge states. However, these challenges can be overcome using advanced hydrogenation processes incorporating excess carrier generation from illumination or current injection that increase the concentration of the highly mobile and reactive neutral charge state. As a result, after fast firing, additional low-temperature advanced hydrogenation processes incorporating illumination can be implemented to enable the passivation of difficult defects like the boron-oxygen complex. With the implementation of such processes for industrial silicon solar cells, efficiency improvements of 1.1% absolute can be obtained.

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“…There are also uncertainties as to the impact carbon has in reducing the lifetime of silicon. For example, recent work has identified the formation of strong recombination active carbon-oxygen-hydrogen complexes in n-type silicon [68]. Therefore, the co-doping of boron-doped ingots with germanium or carbon does not appear to be a viable solution for completely avoiding B-O related degradation, without introducing other performance limiting defects.…”

Section: Additional Non-boron Related Doping During Crystal Growthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eliminating Light-Induced Degradation in Commercial p-Type Czochralski Silicon Solar Cells

et al. 2017

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This paper discusses developments in the mitigation of light-induced degradation caused by boron-oxygen defects in boron-doped Czochralski grown silicon. Particular attention is paid to the fabrication of industrial silicon solar cells with treatments for sensitive materials using illuminated annealing. It highlights the importance and desirability of using hydrogen-containing dielectric layers and a subsequent firing process to inject hydrogen throughout the bulk of the silicon solar cell and subsequent illuminated annealing processes for the formation of the boron-oxygen defects and simultaneously manipulate the charge states of hydrogen to enable defect passivation. For the photovoltaic industry with a current capacity of approximately 100 GW peak, the mitigation of boron-oxygen related light-induced degradation is a necessity to use cost-effective B-doped silicon while benefitting from the high-efficiency potential of new solar cell concepts.

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Powerful recombination centers resulting from reactions of hydrogen with carbon–oxygen defects in n‐type Czochralski‐grown silicon

Cited by 16 publications

References 25 publications

Theory of a carbon‐oxygen‐hydrogen recombination center in n‐type Si

Theory of a carbon‐oxygen‐hydrogen recombination center in n‐type Si

Development of advanced hydrogenation processes for silicon solar cells via an improved understanding of the behaviour of hydrogen in silicon

Eliminating Light-Induced Degradation in Commercial p-Type Czochralski Silicon Solar Cells

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