By studying the minority carrier lifetime in recently manufactured commercially available n‐ and p‐type float‐zone (FZ) silicon from five leading suppliers, we observe a very large reduction in the bulk lifetime when FZ silicon is heat‐treated in the range 450–700 °C. Photoluminescence imaging of these samples at the wafer scale revealed concentric circular patterns, with higher recombination occurring in the centre, and far less around the periphery. Deep level transient spectroscopy measurements indicate the presence of recombination active defects, including a dominant center with an energy level at ∼Ev + 0.5 eV. Upon annealing FZ silicon at temperatures >1000 °C in oxygen, the lifetime is completely recovered, whereby the defects vanish and do not reappear upon subsequent annealing at 500 °C. We conclude that the heat‐treatments at >1000 °C result in total annihilation of the recombination active defects. Without such high temperature treatments, the minority carrier lifetime in FZ silicon is unstable and will affect the development of high efficiency (>24%) solar cells and surface passivation studies.

(2016) Permanent annihilation of thermally activated defects which limit the lifetime of float-zone silicon. Physica Status Solidi A . Permanent WRAP URL:

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Local vibrational mode (LVM) spectroscopy has been used to study the evolution of vacancy-oxygen-related defects (VOn) in the temperature range 300-700°C in carbon-lean Cz-Si samples irradiated with MeV electrons or neutrons. New experimental data confirming an attribution of the absorption bands at 910, 976 and 1105 cm-1 to the VO3 complex are obtained. In particular, a correlated generation of VO3 and the oxygen trimer is observed upon irradiation of Cz- Si crystals in the temperature range 300-400°C. Strong evidence for the assignment of the bands at 991 and 1014 cm-1 to a VO4 defect is presented. The lines are found to develop very efficiently in the VO2 containing materials enriched with the oxygen dimer. In such materials the formation of VO4 is enhanced due to occurrence of the reaction O2i+VO2 ⇒ VO4. Annealing of the VO3 and VO4 defects at T ≥ 550C °C is found to result in the appearance of new defects giving rise to a number of O-related LVM bands in the range 990-1110 cm-1. These bands are suggested to arise from VO5 and/or VO6 defects. Similar bands also appear upon the annihilation of oxygen-related thermal double donors at 650°C in Cz-Si crystals pre-annealed at 450°C.

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Combined local mode spectroscopy and ab initio modeling are used to demonstrate for the first time that oxygen atoms in thermal double donors (TDD) in Si are in close proximity. The observed vibrational modes in (16)O, (18)O, and mixed isotopic samples are consistent with a model involving [110] aligned oxygen chains made up of an insulating core lying between electrically active ends. The model also explains the minute spin density observed on oxygen in TDD(+) as well as the piezospectroscopic tensors of the donors. The analogy between the thermal donors and quantum dots is emphasized.