TY - JOUR

T1 - Easy-to-apply methodology to measure the hydrogen concentration in boron-doped crystalline silicon

AU - Walter, Dominic C.

AU - Bredemeier, Dennis

AU - Falster, Robert

AU - Voronkov, Vladimir V.

AU - Schmidt, Jan

N1 - Funding Information: This work was partly funded by the state of Lower Saxony and the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy ( BMWi ) within the research project “ LIMES ” (contract no. 0324204D ). The content is the responsibility of the authors.

PY - 2019/9/15

Y1 - 2019/9/15

N2 - Hydrogen is a highly relevant impurity in crystalline silicon associated with a variety of effects particularly important in solar cell technology such as defect and surface passivation. It has been the subject of countless studies. Much of this however relies to a certain degree on speculation due to limitations in hydrogen measurement capability, making a direct quantitative correlation of these phenomena with the hydrogen content largely impossible so far. In this contribution, we apply recent advances in the understanding of hydrogen introduction and behaviour in silicon - in particular the conversion of quenched in dimeric hydrogen to boron hydrogen pairs (BH) - and introduce an easy-to-apply methodology to determine quantitatively the hydrogen concentration in bulk boron-doped silicon. The technique involves the measurement and analysis of changes to the bulk resistivity, as recorded by contactless eddy-current measurements, due to the formation of BH pairs during annealing at temperatures between 140 and 180 °C. To demonstrate the method, we apply it to boron-doped float-zone silicon wafers with SiN x:H coatings of different compositions, introducing different total hydrogen concentrations between 5 × 10 14 and 1.3 × 10 15 cm −3 into the silicon bulk during a fast-firing step. Without firing, the hydrogen content is below the detection limit of 3 × 10 14 cm −3 for the 1 Ω cm test sample used.

AB - Hydrogen is a highly relevant impurity in crystalline silicon associated with a variety of effects particularly important in solar cell technology such as defect and surface passivation. It has been the subject of countless studies. Much of this however relies to a certain degree on speculation due to limitations in hydrogen measurement capability, making a direct quantitative correlation of these phenomena with the hydrogen content largely impossible so far. In this contribution, we apply recent advances in the understanding of hydrogen introduction and behaviour in silicon - in particular the conversion of quenched in dimeric hydrogen to boron hydrogen pairs (BH) - and introduce an easy-to-apply methodology to determine quantitatively the hydrogen concentration in bulk boron-doped silicon. The technique involves the measurement and analysis of changes to the bulk resistivity, as recorded by contactless eddy-current measurements, due to the formation of BH pairs during annealing at temperatures between 140 and 180 °C. To demonstrate the method, we apply it to boron-doped float-zone silicon wafers with SiN x:H coatings of different compositions, introducing different total hydrogen concentrations between 5 × 10 14 and 1.3 × 10 15 cm −3 into the silicon bulk during a fast-firing step. Without firing, the hydrogen content is below the detection limit of 3 × 10 14 cm −3 for the 1 Ω cm test sample used.

KW - Boron-hydrogen-pairs

KW - Crystalline silicon

KW - Hydrogen

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85066245407&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.solmat.2019.109970

DO - 10.1016/j.solmat.2019.109970

M3 - Article

VL - 200

JO - Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells

JF - Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells

SN - 0927-0248

M1 - 109970

ER -