Search results for "Getter"
showing 7 items of 7 documents
Temperature Coefficients of Crystal Defects in Multicrystalline Silicon Wafers
2020
This article investigates the influence of crystallographic defects on the temperature sensitivity of multicrystalline silicon wafers. The thermal characteristics of the implied open-circuit voltage is assessed since it determines most of the total temperature sensitivity of the material. Spatially resolved temperature-dependent analysis is performed on wafers from various brick positions; intragrain regions, grain boundaries, and dislocation clusters are examined. The crystal regions are studied before and after subjecting the wafers to phosphorus gettering, aiming to alter the metallic impurity concentration in various regions across the wafers. Most intragrain regions and grain boundarie…
How Gettering Affects the Temperature Sensitivity of the Implied Open Circuit Voltage of Multicrystalline Silicon Wafers
2019
The temperature sensitivity of the open circuit voltage of a solar cell is mainly driven by changes in the intrinsic carrier concentration, but also by the temperature dependence of the limiting recombination mechanisms in the cell. This paper investigates the influence of recombination through metallic impurities on the temperature sensitivity of multicrystalline silicon wafers. Spatially resolved temperature dependent analysis is performed to evaluate the temperature sensitivity of wafers from different brick positions before and after being subjected to phosphorus diffusion gettering. Local spatial analysis is performed on intra-grain areas, dislocation clusters and grain boundaries. Lar…
HCl gas gettering of low-cost silicon
2013
HCl gas gettering is a cheap and simple technique to reduce transition metal concentrations in silicon. It is attractive especially for low-cost silicon materials like upgraded metallurgical grade (UMG) silicon, which usually contain 3d transition metals in high concentrations. Etching of silicon by HCl gas occurs during HCl gas gettering above a certain onset temperature. The etching rate as well as the gettering efficiency was experimentally determined as a function of the gettering temperature, using UMG silicon wafers. The activation energy of the etching reaction by HCl gas was calculated from the obtained data. The gettering efficiency was determined by analyzing Ni as a representativ…
Recycling of 3He from lung magnetic resonance imaging
2011
We have developed the means to recycle 3He exhaled by patients after imaging the lungs using magnetic resonance of hyperpolarized 3He. The exhaled gas is collected in a helium leak proof bag and further compressed into a steel bottle. The collected gas contains about 1–2% of 3He, depending on the amount administered and the number of breaths collected to wash out the 3He gas from the lungs. 3He is separated from the exhaled air using zeolite molecular sieve adsorbent at 77 K followed by a cold head at 8 K. Residual gaseous impurities are finally absorbed by a commercial nonevaporative getter. The recycled 3He gas features high purity, which is required for repolarization by metastability ex…
Impact of a cryogenic baffle system on the suppression of radon-induced background in the KATRIN Pre-Spectrometer
2018
The KATRIN experiment will determine the effective electron anti-neutrino mass with a sensitivity of 200 meV/c2 at 90% CL. The energy analysis of tritium β-decay electrons will be performed by a tandem setup of electrostatic retarding spectrometers which have to be operated at very low background levels of <10−2 counts per second. This benchmark rate can be exceeded by background processes resulting from the emanation of single 219,220Rn atoms from the inner spectrometer surface and an array of non-evaporable getter strips used as main vacuum pump. Here we report on the impact of a cryogenic technique to reduce this radon-induced background in electrostatic spectrometers. It is based on ins…
New process of silicon carbide purification intended for silicon passivation
2017
Abstract In this work, we report on a new, efficient and low cost process of silicon carbide (SiC) powder purification intended to be used in photovoltaic applications. This process consists on the preparation of porous silicon carbide layers followed by a photo-thermal annealing under oxygen atmosphere and chemical treatment. The effect of etching time on impurities removal efficiency was studied. Inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) results showed that the best result was achieved for an etching time of 10 min followed by gettering at 900 °C during 1 h. SiC purity is improved from 3N (99.9771%) to 4N (99.9946%). Silicon carbide thin films were deposited onto s…
Improving the material quality of silicon ingots by aluminum gettering during crystal growth
2016
We present a method for the purification of silicon ingots during the crystallization process that reduces significantly the width of the low charge carrier lifetime region at the ingot top. The back-diffusion of impurities from the ingot top is suppressed by adding a small amount of pure aluminum into the silicon melt right at the end of the solidification. We study the aluminum gettering effect by instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) and Fei imaging. Furthermore, we present a model for aluminum gettering of Fe in the silicon ingot that is in agreement with literature data for aluminum gettering at lower temperature. The distribution of iron in the ingots with and without alumin…