Citation
Lelievre, Jean Francoise and Hofstetter, Jasmin and Peral Boiza, Ana and Hoces, I. and Cañizo Nadal, Carlos del and Recart, F.
(2011).
Dissolution and gettering of iron during contact co-firing.
In: "SiliconPV 2011 Conference (1st International Conference on Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaics)", 17/04/2011 - 20/04/2011, Friburgo, Alemania. pp. 257-262.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2011.06.133,.
Abstract
The dissolution and gettering of iron is studied during the final fabrication step of multicrystalline silicon solar cells, the co-firing step, through simulations and experiments. The post-processed interstitial iron concentration is simulated according to the as-grown concentration and distribution of iron within a silicon wafer, both in the presence and absence of the phosphorus emitter, and applying different time-temperature profiles for the firing step. The competing effects of dissolution and gettering during the short annealing process are found to be strongly dependant on the as-grown material quality. Furthermore, increasing the temperature of the firing process leads to a higher dissolution of iron, hardly compensated by the higher diffusivity of impurities. A new defect engineering tool is introduced, the extended co-firing, which could allow an enhanced gettering effect within a small additional time