Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy for Analysis of Boron Distribution in Silicon

24th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, 21-25 September 2009, Hamburg, Germany; 1189-1192
Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) is a tool for the characterization of almost any material. It is a very precise method, taking less than 10μs and able to make measurements on an area down to 2.10-7m2. The purity of the material may be measured using LIBS due to its high sensitivity (10-7g/g). Therefore defects or contamination of a given material may be precisely measured as a function of position on the surface of a given sample. LIBS is a technique which consists of the high intensity ablation of a surface by a fast highly focused laser and the subsequent analysis of the luminous emissions from the resulting superheated plasma. The aim of this work is to develop this technique for the analysis of the distribution of impurities, especially boron, in different grades of silicon.