LOCAL INVESTIGATION OF MONOCRYSTALLINE SILICON SOLAR CELLS DEFECTS

1 1 1 1 2
Tománek P , Škarvada P , Grmela L Mack R and Smith, S.J.
1
Brno University of Technology, Brno, Czech Republic
2
South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, South Dakota, USA

broadening, masking many of the signatures of the

ABSTRACT individual defects.

Unfortunately for a quality and efficiency of solar cells,

We present results of microscale localization and
there is wide variety of defects of distinct nature there.
characterization of defects in monocrystalline silicon solar
Some of them are in particular cases troublesome for the
cells using LBIC and Scanning near-field optical
good function of solar cell, other not. For the detection and
microscopy (SNOM). Although etched silicon is still most
localization of defects different mapping and non-mapping
effective material for solar cells, some problems with their
electrical and optical techniques are used [3-6].
use in solar plant installation persist due to the defects.
The monocrystalline silicon is still most effective material
The basic characterization methods of silicon solar cells
for solar cells, some problems with their use in solar plant
are electrical measurements. They represent integral
installation persist due to the defects [7].
measurements on the whole cell and only inform us about
the presence of defects in the structure. Local defects in
With the development of charge coupled device detectors,
the p-n junction may be associated with structural
a lock-in thermography [8], a considerable number of fast
imperfections (such as grain boundaries, dislocations, and
imaging methods and applications in solar cell
scratches), chemical impurities, higher concentrations of
characterization has been found [9, 10, 11]. These
donors and acceptors. Therefore, to develop investigation
methods are mainly used in in-situ characterization and
methods, a number of existing apparent and hidden
process control for mass wafer production.
imperfections in the bulk, surface or edges of the cell have
to be examined, detected, localized with higher spatial
In addition to the experimental preparation of samples,
resolution, characterized and classified. Moreover, it is
which contain no or drastically reduced distributions,
important not only to find most harmful defects, but also to
experimental information on the optical properties of
understand their nature and identify the factors which
individual imperfections can be obtained only by using
adversely affect recombination properties and
optical techniques with subwavelength spatial resolution
consequently an overall efficiency of the cells.
[4, 12].
The suggested method combines an electric noise
Nevertheless, there are still many opened questions in the
measurement with local topography and near-field optical
field of local light emission, material defects and their
beam induced current. To prove the feasibility of this
relation. This paper presents experimental results showing
method, we have chosen one bulk and one edge defect
sequential method combining electrical noise
within the sample, which emitted light under low reverse-
measurements with scanning probe localization of
biased voltage.
luminous micro-spots, as well as a characterization of their
nature.
Light emission from edge spot exhibits strong positive I-U
METHOD
relation with temperature, while for a bulk spot this
dependence is slightly negative. Moreover, it was found
Electrical noise measurement on silicon solar wafer allows
that one emitting macroscopic spot can consist of several
detect a presence of low-voltage breakdowns in defect
small light emission spots which diameters are bellow
sites of p-n junctions.
3 μm.
Laser beam induced current (LBIC) is a method used for
INTRODUCTION defect localization in structure of exposed p-n junction
(Fig. 1). The method is based on interaction of laser beam
Solar cells are large p-n junction semiconductor devices, with matter [5]. Focused incident photons generate
and experimental studies of these systems using carriers in optically excited p-n junction area. This local
conventional optical techniques, yield in most cases current response is then measured. By scanning of laser
information only of the spatially averaged system beam the LBIC image can be acquired.
properties. Since real samples usually containdistributions
of imperfection sizes, shapes, or composition, [1,2] the The current can be measured as a voltage drops at
signals are often dominated by inhomogeneous sufficiently low resistance, but preferable is measurement
using trans-impedance amplifier (TIA) due to zero input

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impedance. TIA has a high gain and together with input Figure 3 represents the defect sites distributed mainly in
capacity is decreasing the phase margin. So TIA usually sample edge area for a low reverse bias voltage.
inclines to oscillation. Especially for solar cell, which has
relatively high capacity compared to small photodiode, Spot 1
proper feedback capacitor has to been used to restore y-axis / mm log counts per sec.
phase margin. 20

EXPERIMENTAL 3.5

15
Noise current vs. reverse-bias voltage measurement
3
Spot 2
Figure 1 shows an I-U electrical signal if reverse-bias
2 10
voltage is applied on the 10 x 10 cm wafer. It is
interesting that noise current always appears at same bias 2.5
voltages [13].
As we shown elsewhere, this noise current is a first Spot 35
2
symptom which refers to the presence of defects in the
wafer [14].
0
0 5 10 15 20
x-axis / mm

Figure 3 Localization of defects in solar cell wafer

using reverse-bias light emission in combination with
LBIC (Ur = - 26.0V).

Spot D Spot B

Figure 1 Noise current vs reverse-bias voltage of the

solar cell defects [14]. Spot A
Laser Beam Induced Current
Spot C
Second step is the use of laser beam induced current
(LBIC) measurement for rough localization of defects
(Fig.2) [14].

Figure 4 Light emission from reverse biased sample

(UR = - 22.0V, T = 300 K)

The light emission at reverse voltage UR = -22.0V can be

Figure 2 Computer controlled measurement system
for low radiant flux detection using photon counting
mode.
seen in Fig. 4. In the left side there is light emission before
locale damage by repetitive electrical connection on the
top side contacts. Sample was repetitively connected in
the green circles area (17 points). In the right part of
Fig. 4 there is the same sample after described connection
procedure. The new nine lighting spots arise in areas of
probe connection. Also in this case there is a proof that
mechanical surface damage can lead to light emission

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from sample under reverse bias condition. Four spots A,
B, C, D (Fig.4) were selected for the further testing. Note
that spots A and D were presented on the sample before
local mechanical damage whilst spots B and C are
artificial defects.
Light emission thermal dependence
The temperature of solar cell sample was controlled by
computer in the range from 305K to 335K during
application of bias voltage on sample from Fig.3. Optical
probe scanned over the sample and locally collected the
emitted light (Fig.5.) The light was guided to the cooled
PMT in photon counting regime. Wavelength range of
PMT was set from 350 to 800nm.
Figure 5 Thermal characteristics of I-U curves and
light emission from solar cell sample.
Light emission versus sample temperature has been
measured also for 4 selected spots from Fig. 4. Solar cell
sample was biased from voltage source UR = -22.0V
during the measurement. Light emission from spots A and
D reflects a negative thermal dependence while spots B
and C have positive thermal dependence (Fig. 6). Since
the light emissions from selected spots have considerably
different values, measurement curves were normalized to
fit one plot.
1
0.9
0.8
Rel. light emission /arb.
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
305 310 315 320
Temperature /K
Figure 6 Thermal properties of light emission of
selected spots (UR = -22.0V).
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Once a rough position of the defect has been known, we
can proceed to the local investigation of its electrical,
optical and thermal characteristics.
Near-field Optical Beam Induced Current
The resolution of LBIC technique is limited similarly to this
of optical microscopy due to the diffraction. Therefore to
circumvent the Rayleigh resolution limit, very promising
tool for high spatial resolution optical measurements is
scanning near-field optical microscope (SNOM). [4, 12, 14]
Here, modifications of electromagnetic radiation are
detected which are caused by the interaction of the
microscope tip with an object smaller than the wavelength
of light. Hence SNOM seem to be ideally suited to
investigate the properties of individual shining spots within
a defect in realistic structure.
One of the optoelectronic techniques allowing overcome
the diffraction limitation is near-field optical beam-induced
current (NOBIC) [7]. Using this method it is possible to
study photoelectric properties of devices in sub-
wavelength resolution. This method is based on coaction
of the scanning near-field optical microscope (SNOM) and
optical (or laser) beam induced current (OBIC) methods.
Here measured current signal has been detected by a
lock-in nanovoltmeter while the solar cell was reverse-
biased or unbiased. The relative electric response on the
locally induced photocurrent has been mapped by color
scale onto original topography of the sample is shown in
Fig. 7.
Figure 7 NOBIC image mapped onto topography in the
vicinity of local spot (red).
The red spot corresponds to the defect near the cell edge.
Spot A The derived local optical signal from this defect is then
Spot B represented in Fig.8. The lateral resolution of this result is
Spot C
Spot D
better than 3Pm.
325 330 335
001688

Figure 8 Derived optical signal from the defect (red
spot in Fig.7).
Microscale study of bulk defect
The area near spot 3 from Fig. 3 was measured using
Scanning Probe Microscope to visualize the imperfection
surface in microscale (Fig.9). Unique structures that are
probably inclusions causing local change of electric field
distribution can be resolved in this figure. Hence the
breakdown will occur in this sample area when the sample
is biased enough. For the light detection scanning near-
field optical microscope can be used [15]. Light emission
comes out from small area near the center of the image.
Figure 9 SNOM image of the sample surface (spot 3).
SUMMARY
This paper presents novel method of microscale
localization of solar cell defects based on the combination
of local electrical and optical measurement. It was found
that one macro-spot can consist of several micro-spots
with diameters bellow d = 3μm. For two spots shown in
Fig.6 the voltage values, at which the spots start to emit
the visible light, are equal. Similarly, the voltage values
necessary for the light emission and the partial breakdown
are the same. No difference has been found when
measuring at various temperatures (Fig.4) although the
breakdown voltage changes (for some samples) in
measured range of temperatures (light emission threshold
follows the breakdown voltage). From thermal
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dependence of breakdown voltage the breakdown process
can be determined.
The similarity of partial breakdown values and light
emission threshold show that the defect has direct
connection with local breakdown. The question persists,
which defects are responsible for local breakdown in I-U
measurement. The voltage values of partial breakdown
and light emission are the same for many of samples.
Although there are samples without local breakdown, they
can harbor light emitting imperfections, and vice versa.
This type of imperfections was not inspected in terms of
this work.
As conclusion we have discovered, that observed and
measured defects could be classify into several groups.
The first group consists of defect having a correlation with
the local electric breakdown. Second group contains
thermally dependent imperfections – hot spots. Third
group of imperfections can be only localized using near-
field optical beam induced current techniques. Moreover,
there are a number of defects with very weak optical
response, which nature is not still evident.
This work has been supported by the Czech Ministry of
Education in the frame of MSM 0021630503 Research
Intention MIKROSYN “New Trends in Microelectronic
System and Nanotechnologies”, by grant LH11060 “Study
of local electric and optical characteristics of solar cells”
and GACR Grant P102/10/2013 “Fluctuation process in
PN junctions of solar cells”. Smith acknowledges funding
provided by NASA award #NNX09AP67A, NSF award #’s
0619890 (DMR), 0903804 (EPSCoR), and the State of
South Dakota.
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