• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
• /
• v.18 no.5
• /
• pp.195-199
• /
• 2008

Production of the silicon feedstock for the semiconductor industry cannot meet the requirement for the solar cell industry because the production volume is too small and production cost is too high. This situation stimulates the solar cell industry to try the lower grade silicon feedstock like UMG (Upgraded Metallurgical Grade) silicon of 5$\sim$6 N in purity. However, this material contains around 1 ppma of dopant atoms like boron or phosphorous. Calculation of the composition profile of these impurities using segregation coefficient during crystal growth makes us expect the change of the type from p to n : boron rich area in the early solidified part and phosphorous rich area in the later solidified part of the silicon ingot. It was expected that the change of the growth speed during the silicon crystal growth is effective in controlling the amount of the metal impurities but not effective in reducing the amount of dopants.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
• /
• 2009.06a
• /
• pp.438-438
• /
• 2009

We have investigated the effect of forming gas annealing for Upgraded Metallurgical Grade (UMG)-silicon solar cell in order to obtain low-cost high-efficiency cell using post deposition anneal at a relatively low temperature. We have observed that high concentration hydrogenation effectively passivated the defects and improved the minority carrier lifetime, series resistance and conversion efficiency. It can be attributed to significantly improved hydrogen-passivation in high concentration hydrogen process. This improvement can be explained by the enhanced passivation of silicon solar cell with antireflection layer due to hydrogen re-incorporation. The results of this experiment represent a promising guideline for improving the high-efficiency solar cells by introducing an easy and low cost process of post hydrogenation in optimized condition.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
• /
• v.49 no.6
• /
• pp.637-641
• /
• 2012

Due to its high production cost and relatively high energy consumption during the Siemens process, poly-silicon makers have been continuously and eagerly sought another silicon route for decades. One candidate that consumes less energy and has a simpler acidic and metallurgical purification procedure is upgraded metallurgical-grade (UMG) silicon. Owing to its low purity, UMG silicon often requires special steps to minimize the impurity effects and to remove or segregate the metal atoms in the bulk and to remove interfacial defects such as precipitates and grain boundaries. A process often called the 'gettering process' is used with phosphorus diffusion in this experiment in an effort to improve the performance of silicon solar cells using UMG silicon. The phosphorous gettering processes were optimized and compared to the standard POCl process so as to increase the minority carrier lifetime(MCLT) with the duration time and temperature as variables. In order to analyze the metal impurity concentration and distribution, secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) was utilized before and after the phosphorous gettering process.