Silicon wafers scrapped from CMOS production lines were used in this work. The low cost of these wafers make them attractive for photovoltaic applications. However, only modest conversion efficiencies (< 9 %) are obtained from solar cells fabricated on scrapped wafers, primarily due to their very low recombination minority carrier lifetimes (usually < 1 μs). This paper shows that x400 improvement in lifetime of scrapped Si can be achieved via high temperature annealing. The efficiency of cells fabricated on HTA scrapped wafers showed a pronounced improvement to ~ 15%.
By: Joel P. de Souza; Daniel Inns; Katherine L. Saenger; Harold J. Hovel; Devendra Sadana
Published in: RC24941 in 2010
LIMITED DISTRIBUTION NOTICE:
This Research Report is available. This report has been submitted for publication outside of IBM and will probably be copyrighted if accepted for publication. It has been issued as a Research Report for early dissemination of its contents. In view of the transfer of copyright to the outside publisher, its distribution outside of IBM prior to publication should be limited to peer communications and specific requests. After outside publication, requests should be filled only by reprints or legally obtained copies of the article (e.g., payment of royalties). I have read and understand this notice and am a member of the scientific community outside or inside of IBM seeking a single copy only.
Questions about this service can be mailed to reports@us.ibm.com .