Investigation of the Grain Boundary Character and Dislocation Density of Different Types of High Performance Multicrystalline Silicon

Wafers from three heights and two different lateral positions (corner and centre) of four industrial multicrystalline silicon ingots were analysed with respect to their grain structure and dislocation density. Three of the ingots were non-seeded and one ingot was seeded. It was found that there is a strong correlation between the ratio of the densities of (coincidence site lattice) CSL grain boundaries and high angle grain boundaries in the bottom of a block and the dislocation cluster density higher in the block. In general, the seeded blocks, both the corner and centre block, have a lower dislocation cluster density than in the non-seeded blocks, which displayed a large variation. The density of the random angle boundaries in the corner blocks of the non-seeded ingots was similar to the density in the seeded ingots, while the density in the centre blocks was lower. However, the density of CSL boundaries was higher in all the non-seeded than in the seeded ingots. It appears that both of these grain boundary densities influence the presence of dislocation clusters, and we propose they act as dislocation sinks and sources, respectively. The ability to generate small grain size material without seeding appears to be correlated to the morphology of the coating, which is generally rougher in the corner positions than in the middle. Furthermore, the density of twins and CSL boundaries depends on the growth mode during initial growth and thus on the degree of supercooling. Controlling both these properties is important in order to be able to successfully produce uniform quality high-performance multicrystalline silicon by the advantageous non-seeding method.

Space and Time Resolved Photoluminescence of Defects at Dislocations in In-Alloyed GaAs Substrate Material

ABSTRACTWe report a study of dislocations in In-alloyed GaAs substrate material using space and time resolved photoluminescence (PL). PL intensity maps show that an isolated dislocation cluster is in the center of a dark region with a 50μm radius surrounded by a bright region with an outer radius of 150μm. Lifetime measurements were made in the bright and dark regions. Values as long as 3.5 ns and as short as 250 psec were observed in adjacent bright and dark regions. These measurements indicate that the PL intensity contrast is explained by lifetime variations in these features. This supports the view that the dislocation cluster acts as a source and sink for defects which govern the lifetime in the surrounding material. Temperature dependence of the lifetime indicates two different defects may be involved. Both of these produce deep levels, neither one of which is EL2. A surface passivation technique is used to show that surface recombination is not important to the PL intensity contrast.