2018/04/30 by Patricia Carvalho, Patricia Almeida Carvalho, Annett Thørgesen +10
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Annealing (glass) #Boron and Carbon Nanomaterials Research #Dislocation #Dopant #Precipitation #Scanning electron microscope #Scanning transmission electron microscopy #Silicon Carbide Semiconductor Technologies #Silicon and Solar Cell Technologies #Stacking #Transmission electron microscopy #cond-mat.mtrl-sci
paper · pdf · doi:10.21468/scipostphys.5.3.021
published as SciPost Phys. 5, 021 (2018) · 18 pages, 10 figures
openalex created_date 2018/04/24 · openalex publication_date 2018/09/06 · arxiv created 2018/12/10 · arxiv updated 2018/12/11 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Boron (B) has the potential for generating an intermediate band in cubic silicon carbide (3C-SiC), turning this material into a highly efficient absorber for single-junction solar cells. The formation of a delocalized band demands high concentration of the foreign element, but the precipitation behavior of B in the 3C polymorph of SiC is not well known. Here, probe-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy and secondary-ion mass spectrometry are used to investigate precipitation mechanisms in B-implanted 3C-SiC as a function of temperature. Point-defect clustering was detected after annealing at 1273 K while stacking faults, B-rich precipitates and dislocation networks developed in the 1573 - 1773 K range. The precipitates adopted the rhombohedral B 13 C 2 structure and trapped B up to 1773 K. Above this temperature, higher solubility reduced precipitation and free B diffused out of the implantation layer. Dopant concentrations of \mathbf1019 at.cm-3 <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mml:mstyle mathvariant="bold"> <mml:msup> <mml:mn>10</mml:mn> <mml:mn>19</mml:mn> </mml:msup> <mml:mspace width="0.222em"/> <mml:msup> <mml:mstyle mathvariant="normal"> <mml:mstyle mathvariant="bold"> <mml:mi>𝐚</mml:mi> <mml:mi>𝐭</mml:mi> <mml:mi>.</mml:mi> <mml:mi>𝐜</mml:mi> <mml:mi>𝐦</mml:mi> </mml:mstyle> </mml:mstyle> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>−</mml:mo> <mml:mn>3</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msup> </mml:mstyle> </mml:math> were achieved at 1873 K.