Fundamental boron–oxygen‐related carrier lifetime limit in mono‐ and multicrystalline silicon

Abstract Boron‐doped crystalline silicon is the most relevant material in today's solar cell production. Following the trend towards higher efficiencies, silicon substrate materials with high carrier lifetimes are becoming more and more important. In silicon with sufficiently low metal impurity concentrations, the carrier lifetime is ultimately limited by a metastable boron–oxygen‐related defect, which forms under minority‐carrier injection. We have analysed 49 different Czochralski‐grown silicon materials of numerous suppliers with various boron and oxygen concentrations. On the basis of our measured lifetime data, we have derived a universal empirical parameterisation predicting the stable carrier lifetime from the boron and oxygen content in the crystalline silicon material. For multicrystalline silicon it is shown that the predicted carrier lifetime can be regarded as a fundamental upper limit. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.