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Defect Study of Polycrystalline–silicon Seed Layers made by Aluminum Induced Crystallization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2011

Srisaran Venkatachalam ,
Dries Van Gestel  and
Ivan Gordon
Srisaran Venkatachalam
Affiliation:
venka@imec.be, IMEC, Kapeldreef 75, Leuven, Leuven, BE-3001, Belgium, +32 16 28 11 42
Dries Van Gestel
Affiliation:
vangeste@imec.be, IMEC, Leuven, Belgium
Ivan Gordon
Affiliation:
gordoni@imec.be, IMEC, Leuven, Belgium
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Abstract

A polycrystalline silicon (pc-Si) thin film with large grains on a low-cost non-Si substrate is a promising material for thin-film solar cells. One possibility to grow such a pc-Si layer is by aluminum-induced crystallization (AIC) followed by epitaxial thickening. The best cell efficiency we have achieved so far with such an AIC approach is 8%. The main factor that limits the efficiency of our pc-Si solar cells at present is the presence of many intra-grain defects. These intra-grain defects originate within the AIC seed layer. The defect density of the layers can be determined by chemical defect etching. This technique is well suited for our epitaxial layers but relatively hard to execute directly on the seed layers. This paper presents a way to reveal the defects present in thin and highly-aluminum-doped AIC seed layers by using defect etching. We used diluted Schimmel and diluted Wright etching solutions. SEM pictures show the presence of intra-grain defects and grain boundaries in seed layers after defect etching, as verified by EBSD analyses. The SEM images of diluted Wright etched pc-Si seed layer shows that grain boundaries become much better visible than with diluted Schimmel etch.

Keywords

defectsphotovoltaicSi
Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 1153: Symposium A – Amorphous and Polycrystalline Thin Film Silicon Science and Technology–2009 , 2009 , 1153-A16-02
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2009

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