Can hydrogenation mitigate Cu-induced bulk degradation in silicon?

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Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Conference article in proceedings
Date
2020
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Language
en
Pages
4
2582-2585
Series
2020 47th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, PVSC 2020, Conference record of the IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference
Abstract
Many defects can cause significant bulk degradation in crystalline silicon, which inherently limits solar cell efficiency. Perhaps the most well-known source of light-induced bulk degradation (LID) in Czochralski-grown silicon is the boron-oxygen defect. However, metal impurities, such as copper, can also cause severe degradation. Advanced hydrogenation processes incorporating minority carrier injection can effectively passivate boron-oxygen complexes, but their effect on copper-induced degradation has not been studied previously. Herein, we explore the effect of hydrogenation on LID in copper-contaminated silicon. Without hydrogenation the bulk lifetime decreases down to 5\ \mu\mathrm{s} while in hydrogenated samples the bulk lifetime remains above 300\ \mu\mathrm{s} during the whole degradation cycle. The results thus indicate that even in heavily copper-contaminated silicon hydrogenation can passivate Cu precipitates and mitigate Cu-LID.
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Keywords
bulk defects, copper contamination, hydrogenation, light-induced degradation
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Citation
Heikkinen , I T S , Wright , B , Soeriyadi , A H , Yli-Koski , M , Kim , M , Vähänissi , V , Hallam , B J & Savin , H 2020 , Can hydrogenation mitigate Cu-induced bulk degradation in silicon? in Proceedings of the 47th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, PVSC 2020 . , 9300619 , IEEE , pp. 2582-2585 , IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference , Calgary , Canada , 15/06/2020 . https://doi.org/10.1109/PVSC45281.2020.9300619