Dynamics at crystal/melt interface during solidification of multicrystalline silicon

Estimation of solidification interface shapes in a boron–phosphorus compensated multicrystalline silicon ingot via photoluminescence imaging

This paper introduces a method for estimating the shape of the solidification front along the height of a directionally-solidified multicrystalline silicon ingot. The technique uses net dopant density images, obtained on wafers via photoluminescence imaging under surface limited conditions, after the impact of grain boundaries is eliminated through an image processing procedure. By modeling the...

Study of Dislocations in the Minicrystallized Regions in Multicrystalline Silicon Grown by the Directional Solidification Method

Directionally solidified multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si)-based solar cells have dominated the global photovoltaic market in recent years. The photovoltaic performance of mc-Si solar cells is strongly influenced by their crystalline defects. The occurrence of minicrystallization results in much smaller grain size and, therefore, a larger number of grain boundaries in mc-Si ingots. Dislocations ...

Precipitation of iron in multicrystalline silicon during annealing

Precipitation of interstitial iron in multicrystalline silicon

The internal gettering of iron in silicon via iron precipitation at low processing temperatures is known to improve solar cell efficiencies. Studies have found that the optimal temperature lies in the range of 500 o C-600 o C. In this paper, we present experimental results on quantitatively analysing the precipitation of interstitial Fe in multicrystalline silicon wafers during the 500 o C-600 ...

RIE-Texturing of Multicrystalline Silicon Solar Cells

We developed a maskless plasma texturing technique for multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si) cells using Reactive Ion Etching (RIE) that results in higher cell performance than that of standard untextured cells. Elimination of plasma damage has been achieved while keeping front reflectance to extremely low levels. Internal quantum efficiencies as high as those on planar cells have been obtained, boo...