Temperature-dependent recombination velocity analysis on artificial small angle grain boundaries using electron beam induced current method.

The details of the process of carrier recombination via the Shockley-Read-Hall (SRH) defect level, at the grain boundaries of multicrystalline silicon, were investigated. For this, the temperature-dependent recombination velocities, as determined by experiments, were analyzed by the application of an electron beam induced current method. For the model, the misorientation angles at the grain boundaries were defined using a multi-seed casting-growth method. The results of our experiments indicated different temperature behaviors at low and high temperatures. These can be explained by controlling the process anticipated by the SRH model, that is, the process whereby minority carriers (electrons) are captured at lower temperatures, followed by the reemission of the carriers before recombination with Arrhenius behavior at higher temperatures. The minority capture process appeared to conform to the power law T-α temperature behavior. Thus, there are two candidate electron capture mechanisms, namely, cascade phonon emission capture for shallow centers and excitonic-Auger capture for deep centers. The activation energy for the reemission of carriers was around 0.1 eV. These findings regarding the temperature dependence are essentially independent of the misorientation angles, suggesting a common defect level and recombination mechanism. The difference in the recombination velocities can be regarded as being derived from the difference in the density at the defect level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]