Conductance of silicon grain boundaries in as-grown and annealed bicrystals
- 15 February 1987
- journal article
- Published by AIP Publishing in Journal of Applied Physics
- Vol. 61 (4) , 1547-1552
- https://doi.org/10.1063/1.338088
Abstract
The conductivity across the grain boundary plane was investigated on p-type silicon bicrystals. A correlation was found between the electrical properties and the crystallographic structure for boundaries with the coincidence structures Σ9, 13, 25, 27, and for noncoincidence orientations with Σ>100. The boundaries were analyzed using electron beam induced current (EBIC) (minority carriers) and conductance measurements (majority carriers). The influence of a vacuum heat treatment (850 °C, 30 min) was studied for the different grain boundary structures. This was compared with an annealing at 850 °C in a POCl3 atmosphere as used in the solar cell diffusion step. A narrow band centered respectively at 0.14 and 0.10 eV above the valence band is proposed to explain the experimental behavior of the Σ25 and 27 boundaries.This publication has 12 references indexed in Scilit:
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