Relationship between interstitial oxygen, substitutional carbon, resistivity and minority carrier lifetime in metallurgical multicrystalline silicon

Abstract

In this study we try to indentify relation between carrier lifetime, resistivity and two mains impurities concentration in a p-type upgrade metallurgical multicrystalline (UMG) silicon ingot. Thanks to this relation, we could prevent the Light Induced Degradation (LID) phenomenon and the SiC particles formation which are, respectively, at the origin of Voc losses and shunts in solar cells. So these 2 parameters are important for photovoltaic panels’ efficiency. Lifetime measurements are achieved by means of the Microwave Photoconductivity Decay “μw-PCD” technique, and concentration measurements are determined by FTIR. We demonstrate that resistivity variations depend on oxygen’s concentration but carbon analyses must be continued.