Statistical analysis of recombination properties of the boron-oxygen defect in p-type Czochralski silicon

doi:10.1007/s11708-016-0442-6

Front. Energy

2017, Vol. 11

Issue (1) : 4-22 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11708-016-0442-6

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Statistical analysis of recombination properties of the boron-oxygen defect in p-type Czochralski silicon

Nitin NAMPALLI(

),Tsun Hang FUNG,Stuart WENHAM,Brett HALLAM,Malcolm ABBOTT

School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia

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Abstract

This paper presents the application of lifetime spectroscopy to the study of carrier-induced degradation ascribed to the boron-oxygen (BO) defect. Specifically, a large data set of p-type silicon samples is used to investigate two important aspects of carrier lifetime analysis: ① the methods used to extract the recombination lifetime associated with the defect and ② the underlying assumption that carrier injection does not affect lifetime components unrelated to the defect. The results demonstrate that the capture cross section ratio associated with the donor level of the BO defect (k₁) vary widely depending on the specific method used to extract the defect-specific recombination lifetime. For the data set studied here, it was also found that illumination used to form the defect caused minor, but statistically significant changes in the surface passivation used. This violation of the fundamental assumption could be accounted for by applying appropriate curve fitting methods, resulting in an improved estimate of k₁ (11.90±0.45) for the fully formed BO defect when modeled using the donor level alone. Illumination also appeared to cause a minor, apparently injection-independent change in lifetime that could not be attributed to the donor level of the BO defect alone and is likely related to the acceptor level of the BO defect. While specific to the BO defect, this study has implications for the use of lifetime spectroscopy to study other carrier induced defects. Finally, we demonstrate the use of a unit-less regression goodness-of-fit metric for lifetime data that is easy to interpret and accounts for repeatability error.

Keywords Czochralski silicon boron-oxygen defect injection dependent lifetime spectroscopy goodness-of-fit repeatability error

Corresponding Author(s): Nitin NAMPALLI

Just Accepted Date: 02 November 2016 Online First Date: 09 November 2016 Issue Date: 16 November 2016

Cite this article:

Nitin NAMPALLI,Tsun Hang FUNG,Stuart WENHAM, et al. Statistical analysis of recombination properties of the boron-oxygen defect in p-type Czochralski silicon[J]. Front. Energy, 2017, 11(1): 4-22.

URL:

https://academic.hep.com.cn/fie/EN/10.1007/s11708-016-0442-6
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fie/EN/Y2017/V11/I1/4

Tab.1 Summary of fitting methods

Fig.1 Average repeatability error in inverse lifetime (circles) as a function of excess carrier density for IDLS data measured by PCD using the generalized method. Black line shows empirical fit to the data

Fig.2 IDLS data set showing measured inverse lifetime t_DA⁻¹ (black circles), t_LS⁻¹ (red squares) and (t_LS⁻¹ – t_DA⁻¹) (blue triangles) for the same sample modeled using method B (a) and method D (b). Grey points indicate data rejected for regression. Best fits to t_LS⁻¹and t_DA⁻¹ are indicated by the solid red line and dashed black line respectively. Fitted lifetime components are indicated by other colored lines: t_bulk,fixed (yellow), t_SRH,non-BO (purple), t_surf (green) and t_SRH,BO (blue). Components determined from t_DA fitting are indicated by dashed lines. Solid lines indicate unconstrained components determined from t_LS fitting. Unit-less GOF metrics for t_DA fitting (Q_DA), t_LS fitting (Q_LS) and overall GOF for t_DA and t_LS fitting (Q_global) are also indicated

Fig.3 Box plot of reduced Chi-square (Q_LS) for t_LS fitted using various methods described in Table 1 (Median and MAD values of Q_LS are listed above plot. Dashed line at Q = 1 is shown for reference. Note that Q_LS is a unit-less quantity)

Fig.4 Box plot of the global reduced Chi-square (Q_global) for fits to both t_LS and t_DA from the various fitting methods described in Table 1 (Median and MAD values of Q_global are listed above plot. Dashed line at Q = 1 is shown for reference. Note that Q_global is a unit-less quantity)

Fig.5 Box plot of best fit capture cross section ratio (k₁) obtained using the fitting methods listed in Table 1 (Median and MAD of k₁ for each method are listed above the plot. k₁ value from the literature (k_lit) based on TDLS measurements [6] is denoted by red line)

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