Growth and characterization of indium doped silicon single crystals at industrial scale

Indium is becoming one of the most important dopant species for silicon crystals used in photovoltaics. In this work we have investigated the behavior of indium in silicon crystals grown by the Czochralski pulling process. The experiments were performed by growing 200 mm crystals, which is a standard diameter for large volume production, thus the data reported here are of technological interest for the large scale production of indium doped p-type silicon. The indium segregation coefficient and the evaporation rate from the silicon melt have been calculated to be 5 × 10−4 ± 3% and 1.6 × 10−4 cms−1, respectively. In contrast to previous works the indium was introduced in liquid phase and the efficiency was compared with that deduced by other authors, using different methods. In addition, the percentage of electrically active indium at different dopant concentrations is calculated and compared with the carrier concentration at room temperature, measured by four-point bulk method.