Inter-laboratory 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 intra-laboratory repeatability. This paper presents results of an international inter-laboratory 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 quasi-steady-state (QSS) mode and ±8% for transient mode for wafer samples and within ±4% for bulk samples.