Impact of stress on recombination of metal precipitates in silicon

Metals corrupt the performance of silicon solar cells severely. In this paper we investigate the recombination activity of metal precipitates and present a strong positive correlation between their recombination activity and the stress around them, independent of the type of metal forming the precipitate. This fundamental observation suggests that stress, together with the size of the precipitate, has a dominant effect on the recombination activity of metallic precipitates. We explain the recombination enhancing effect of stress near precipitates by the strong piezoresistance of silicon.