Gettering by heat thermal processing: application in crystalline silicon solar cells

The aim of this work is to getter unwanted impurities from solar grade crystalline silicon (Si) wafers and then to enhance their electronic properties. This was done by forming a sacrificial porous silicon (PS) layer on both sides of the Si wafers and by performing infrared (IR) thermal annealing treatments (at around 950 °C) in a SiCl₄/N₂ controlled atmosphere. The process allows concentrating unwanted impurities in the PS layer and near the PS/silicon interface. These treatments reduce the resistivity by about two orders of magnitude at a depth of about 40 μm and improve the minority carrier diffusion length from 75 to 210 μm. This gettering method was also tested on silicon wafers where grooved fingers and back contacts were achieved using a chemical vapor etching (CVE) method. Front buried metallic contacts and small holes for local back surface field were then achieved after the gettering stage in order to realize silicon solar cells. It was shown that the photovoltaic parameters of gettered silicon solar cells were improved as regard to ungettered ones.     

Spectral discretization of Darcy’s equations with pressure dependent porosity

We consider the flow of a viscous incompressible fluid in a rigid homogeneous porous medium provided with boundary conditions on the pressure around a circular well. When the boundary pressure presents high variations, the permeability of the medium depends on the pressure, so that the model is nonlinear. We propose a spectral discretization of the resulting system of equations which takes into account the axisymmetry of the domain and of the flow. We prove optimal error estimates and present some numerical experiments which confirm the interest of the discretization.     

Spectral discretization of the vorticity, velocity and pressure formulation of the Navier–Stokes equations

We consider the Navier–Stokes equations in a two- or three-dimensional domain provided with non standard boundary conditions which involve the normal component of the velocity and the tangential components of the vorticity. We write a variational formulation of this problem with three independent unknowns, the vorticity, the velocity and the pressure, and prove the existence of a solution for this problem. Next we propose a discretization by spectral methods which relies on this formulation. In the two-dimensional case, we prove quasi-optimal error estimates for the three unknowns. We conclude with some numerical experiments.

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Résumé Nous considérons les équations de Navier–Stokes dans un domaine biou tri-dimensionnel, munies de conditions aux limites non usuelles portant sur la composante normale de la vitesse et la ou les composantes tangentielles du tourbillon. Nous écrivons une formulation variationnelle de ce problème qui comporte trois inconnues indépendantes: le tourbillon, la vitesse et la pression. Nous prouvons que ce problème admet au moins une solution. Nous proposons une discrétisation par méthodes spectrales construite à partir de cette formulation. Dans le cas bidimensionnel, nous établissons des majorations quasi-optimales de l'erreur pour les trois inconnues. Nous concluons par quelques expériences numériques.

     

Monomiale Ideale und mengentheoretische vollständige Durchschnitte

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Fast and accurate algorithm for cavities reconstruction in an elasticity problem

The aim of this work is to reconstruct the location and geometry of a cavity embedded in a linear isotropic material Ω via an exterior boundary measurement of the displacement field. The considered problem is governed by the linear elasticity system. This inverse problem of geometry reconstruction (ie, location and shape) is formulated as a topology optimization one and solved by minimizing a Kohn‐Vogelius type functional with the help of the topological sensitivity method. Some numerical results are presented using a noniterative geometric algorithm.     

Optical and electrical characterization of thin films based on anthracene polyether polymers

Two new anthracene derivatives were characterized to improve the optoelectronic properties of π-conjugated anthracene polymers. The optical properties of the polymers were investigated by UV-visible absorption and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. The energy bandgaps of anthracene-based polyether thin films were in the range 2.8–2.97 eV. Green emission (504 nm) was observed for anthracene/bisphenol A (An-BPA) and green-yellow emission (563 nm) for anthracene/fluorinated bisphenol A. (An-BPAF) Organic diodes formed by sandwiching anthracene layers between indium–tin oxide (ITO) and aluminum contacts were characterized. The dc electrical properties of ITO/anthracene derivatives/Al diodes were studied using current–voltage measurements and showed ohmic behavior at low voltage. The conduction mechanism seems to be a space-charge-limited current with exponential trap distribution at high applied bias voltage. The ac electrical transport of the anthracene derivatives was studied as a function of frequency (100 Hz–10 MHz) and applied bias in impedance spectroscopy analyses. We interpreted Cole–Cole plots in terms of the equivalent circuit model as a single parallel resistance and a capacitance network in series with a relatively small resistance. The evolution of the electrical parameters deduced from fitting of the experimental data is discussed. The conduction mechanism revealed by I–V characteristics is in agreement with the impedance spectroscopy results.     

Local order in aqueous NaCl solutions and pure water: X-ray scattering and molecular dynamics simulations study

The microstructures of pure water and aqueous NaCl solutions over a wide range of salt concentrations (0-4 m) under ambient conditions are characterized by X-ray scattering and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. MD simulations are performed with the rigid SPC water model as a solvent, while the ions are treated as charged Lennard-Jones particles. Simulated data show that the first peaks in the O...O and O...H pair correlation functions clearly decrease in height with increasing salt concentration. Simultaneously, the location of the second O...O peak, the signature of the so-called tetrahedral structure of water, gradually disappears. Consequently, the degree of hydrogen bonding in liquid water decreases when compared to pure fluid. MD results also show that the hydration number around the cation decreases as the salt concentration increases, which is most likely because some water molecules in the first hydration shell are occasionally substituted by chlorine. In addition, the fraction of contact ion pairs increases and that of solvent-separated ion pairs decreases. Experimental data are analyzed to deduce the structure factors and the pair correlation functions of each system. X-ray results clearly show a perturbation of the association structure of the solvent and highlight the appearance of new interactions between ions and water. A model of intermolecular arrangement via MD results is then proposed to describe the local order in each system, as deduced from X-ray scattering data.     

Ring extensions with some finiteness conditions on the set of intermediate rings

A ring extension R ⊆ S is said to be FO if it has only finitely many intermediate rings. R ⊆ S is said to be FC if each chain of distinct intermediate rings in this extension is finite. We establish several necessary and sufficient conditions for the ring extension R ⊆ S to be FO or FC together with several other finiteness conditions on the set of intermediate rings. As a corollary we show that each integrally closed ring extension with finite length chains of intermediate rings is necessarily a normal pair with only finitely many intermediate rings. We also obtain as a corollary several new and old characterizations of Prüfer and integral domains satisfying the corresponding finiteness conditions.