Origin of reverse annealing in radiation-damaged silicon solar cells

Relative defect concentrations, energy levels, capture cross sections, and minority carrier diffusion lengths are used to identify the defect responsible for the reverse annealing observed in a radiation-damaged n+/p silicon solar cell. The responsible defect, with energy level at Ev+0.30 eV, has been tentatively identified as a boron-oxygen-vacancy complex. It is shown tht removal of this defect could result in significant cell recovery when annealing at temperatures well below the currently required 400 °C.