Interlaboratory Study of Eddy-Current Measurement of Excess-Carrier Recombination Lifetime

Excess-carrier recombination lifetime is a key parameter in silicon solar cell design and production. With the vast international use and recent standardization (SEMI PV13) of eddy-current wafer and brick silicon lifetime test instruments, it is important to quantify the inter- and intralaboratory repeatability. This paper presents the results of an international interlaboratory study conducted with 24 participants to determine the precision of the SEMI PV13 eddy-current carrier lifetime measurement test method. Overall, the carrier recombination lifetime between-laboratory reproducibility was found to be within ±11% for the quasi-steady-state mode and ±8% for transient mode for wafer samples, and within ±4% for bulk samples.