Nickel: A very fast diffuser in silicon

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Copyright 2013 American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/jap

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Volume Title

School of Electrical Engineering | A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2013

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Mcode

Degree programme

Language

en

Pages

7

Series

Journal of Applied Physics, Volume 113, Number 20

Abstract

Nickel is increasingly used in both IC and photovoltaic device fabrication, yet it has the potential to create highly recombination-active precipitates in silicon. For nearly three decades, the accepted nickel diffusivity in silicon has been DNi(T)=2.3×10exp−3 exp(−0.47 eV/kBT) cm2/s, a surprisingly low value given reports of rapid nickel diffusion in industrial applications. In this paper, we employ modern experimental methods to measure the higher nickel diffusivity DNi(T)=(1.69±0.74)×10exp−4 exp(−0.15±0.04 eV/kBT)  cm2/s. The measured activation energy is close to that predicted by first-principles theory using the nudged-elastic-band method. Our measured diffusivity of nickel is higher than previously published values at temperatures below 1150 °C, and orders of magnitude higher when extrapolated to room temperature.

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Keywords

solar cells, diffusion, nickel, silicon, wafer, integrated circuit devices, accumulation experiment, nickel diffusivity

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Citation

Lindroos, Jeanette & Fenning, David P. & Backlund, Daniel J. & Verlage, Erik & Gorgulla, Angelika & Estreicher, Stefan K. & Savin, Hele & Buonassisi, Tonio. 2013. Nickel: A very fast diffuser in silicon. Journal of Applied Physics. Volume 113, Number 20. 0021-8979 (printed). DOI: 10.1063/1.4807799.