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Electrical activity of geometrically necessary dislocations in polycrystalline silicon thin films prepared by solid phase crystallization
Author(s) -
Ke Cangming,
Law Felix,
Widenborg Per I.,
Aberle Armin G.,
Peters Ian M.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
physica status solidi (a)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.532
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1862-6319
pISSN - 1862-6300
DOI - 10.1002/pssa.201431271
Subject(s) - misorientation , electron backscatter diffraction , materials science , crystallite , grain boundary , crystallization , condensed matter physics , silicon , enhanced data rates for gsm evolution , phase (matter) , crystallography , optics , composite material , microstructure , optoelectronics , metallurgy , physics , chemistry , telecommunications , computer science , quantum mechanics , thermodynamics
We combine electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) with the electron beam induced current (EBIC) technique, by carefully aligning the EBIC images with EBSD grain average misorientation (GAM) maps of selected polycrystalline thin‐film regions to correlate intragrain misorientation with the film's electrical properties. Applying this method to large (>3 µm diameter) solid phase crystallization (SPC) poly‐Si grains, we find that regions with low EBIC signals coincide with regions that have a high degree of misorientation. EBIC signals from the edge regions of these large grains are about 30% lower than those measured in their central regions. Combination of EBIC and GAM maps suggests that geometrically necessary dislocations (GNDs) are electrically active and present in the regions of the poly‐Si grains with misorientations larger than 3° (whereby these regions are typically close to the grain boundaries). On the other hand, grains smaller than 3 µm show a homogenous spatial distribution of the electrical activity of defects. In addition, the electrical performance in the central regions of the large grains is better than that of the smaller grains. These observations suggest that the origins of the dominant recombination centres of the smaller grains are different from those of the larger grains.