Analysis of saw damage in monocrystalline slurry sawn Si wafers using Raman spectroscopy

In the frame of the PV cost reduction roadmap, the control of the sawing step becomes preponderant that is why reducing the saw damage depth is one of the main challenges. In this work, we analyse the subsurface damage induced by the wafer sawing and estimate the saw damage depth based on structural and spectroscopic analyzes. The structural analysis allowed us to determine the subsurface damage structure while, Raman spectroscopy was used to evaluate their impact on the material quality. We compared chemically and mechanically polished wafer surfaces with slurry sawn as cut wafers in terms of saw damage composition and depth.