Development and Application of Fully-Automated EBIC Techniques for Solar-Cell Measurements

摘要

The electron beam induced current, or EBIC, technique is a powerful tool for the investigation of semiconductor materials and device properties. The technique utilizes a focused electron beam as a source of electron-hole pair generation in a well controlled, localized volume. If the sample contains a collecting electrical junction, the short circuit current response to the electron beam can be measured and/or used as intensity modulation for a short circuit current, or EBIC, map. In this work significant improvements to the state-of-the-art in EBIC measurement systems is described. The system developed is totally computer automated and includes such features as beam current regulation and reproducibility, beam blanking, and automated digital data recording, displaying and manipulation. The manual system on which the automation is based will be described first, followed by the objectives of automating the system. Then a complete description of the automated system including hardware, software and several examples of the use of the system will be detailed. The most commonly desired form of EBIC data is either EBIC or log EBIC versus beam position. (ERA citation 07:053338)