Correlation between electrical activity and extended defect in EMC multicrystalline materials

Polycrystalline silicon of different origins may show differences in structural and electrical properties. The configuration of structural defects like dislocations and grain boundaries could be dependent of the growth conditions. The understanding of recombination origins is difficult as a consequence of the intrinsic complexity of polycrystalline materials where interactions between point defects and extended defects control the electrical properties. We discuss the results of chemical, structural and electrical characterization of a polycrystalline silicon grown by the electromagnetically casting (EMC) technique recently introduced. For the EMC process, we concluded that the main limiting factor is the crystallographic defects in the shape of small grain and bundles of dislocations. However, these structural defects do not involve a strong recombination in entire materials.