X-ray beam induced current—a synchrotron radiation based technique for the <i>in situ</i> analysis of recombination properties and chemical nature of metal clusters in silicon

A synchrotron radiation based x-ray microprobe analytical technique, x-ray beam induced current (XBIC), is suggested and demonstrated at the Advanced Light Source at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The principle of XBIC is similar to that of electron/laser beam induced current with the difference that minority carriers are generated by a focused x-ray beam. XBIC can be combined with any other x-ray microprobe tool, such as the x-ray fluorescence microprobe (μ-XRF), to complement chemical information with data on the recombination activity of impurities and defects. Since the XBIC signal, which carries information about the recombination activity of defects in the sample, and the μ-XRF signal, which contains data on their chemical nature, can be collected simultaneously, this combination offers a unique analytical capability of in situ analysis of the recombination activity of defects and their chemical origin with a high sensitivity and a micron-scale spatial resolution. Examples of an application of this technique to multicrystalline silicon for solar cells are demonstrated.

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