TY - JOUR A1 - Buzanich, Günter A1 - Radtke, Martin A1 - Reinholz, Uwe A1 - Riesemeier, Heinrich A1 - Thünemann, Andreas A1 - Streli, C. T1 - Impurities in multicrystalline silicon wafers for solar cells detected by synchrotron micro-beam X-ray fluorescence analysis JF - Journal of analytical atomic spectrometry N2 - We report on the trace analysis of copper and iron impurities in multicrystalline silicon wafers with the microbeam X-ray fluorescence (µ-XRF) technique. The efficiency of solar cells, which are based on multicrystalline silicon wafers, is strongly influenced by minor contamination with metals such as copper and iron. Application of compound refractive lenses (CRLs) in µ-XRF allows versatile two-dimensional mapping of relevant contaminations and localization of their sites of deposition. In this context, the measured bulk average limit of detection (LOD) was one picogram of iron and copper per gram of silicon. We suggest that µ-XRF is a valuable tool for non-destructive spatial (3D) quantification of metal impurities in a wide range of materials and devices whose functioning could be critically affected by impurities. KW - X-ray micro beam KW - Compound refractive lens KW - Solar cell KW - Silicon impurities PY - 2012 DO - https://doi.org/10.1039/c2ja30188a SN - 0267-9477 SN - 1364-5544 VL - 27 IS - 11 SP - 1875 EP - 1881 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry CY - London AN - OPUS4-26791 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -