Investigation on the dependence of degradation rate on hole concentration during boron-oxygen related light-induced degradation in crystalline silicon

Boron-oxygen related light-induced degradation (BO-LID) of effective charge carrier lifetime is one of the major problems for photovoltaics based on oxygen-rich boron-doped wafer substrates. Within this contribution, the dependence of slow BO-related degradation rate on total hole concentration at 30°C is investigated. A widened high power 805 nm IR-laser is used to reach injection levels comparable with the doping level of the used 2 Ωcm material thus significantly impacting total hole concentration. It is found that slow BO-related degradation rate scales almost quadratically with total hole concentration in best agreement with results from other groups suggesting the involvement of two holes in the slow BO-related degradation mechanism.