n-Type Multicrystalline Silicon Wafers Prepared from Plasma Torch Refined Upgraded Metallurgical Feedstock

n-Type silicon wafers present some definite advantages for the photovoltaic industry, mainly due to the low capture cross sections of minority carriers for most metallic impurities. This peculiarity is beneficial for multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si) wafers in which the interaction between crystallographic defects and impurities is the main source of recombination centres. Most importantly, this peculiarity could be of a great interest when mc-Si ingots are produced directly from upgraded and purified metallurgical silicon feedstock. It is of a paramount importance to verify if the advantages of conventional n-type silicon also characterizes n-type wafers provided by a direct metallurgical route. It is found, in raw wafers., that minority carrier diffusion lengths are three times higher in n-type than in p-type wafers, when the wafers art cut from the same ingot, where the bottom is p-type and the top is n-type, due to the difference in the segregation coefficients of doping elements (boron and phosphorus). After different processing steps and gettering treatments the minority carrier diffusion lengths are always neatly larger in it-type than in p-type wafers The results confirm the interest for n-type silicon. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.