Comparison of electronic structure of as grown and solar grade silicon samples

A comparison of the electronic structure of two different types of silicon materials viz., (i) as grown silicon and (ii) solar silicon has been carried out utilizing maximum entropy method and pair distribution function using powder X-ray data sets. The precise electron density maps have been elucidated for the two samples. The covalent nature of the bonding between atoms in both the samples is found to be well pronounced and clearly seen from the electron density maps. The electron densities at the middle of the Si–Si bond are found to be 0.47 and 0.45 e/$\mathring{\mathrm{A}}^3$ for as grown silicon and solar silicon respectively. In this work, the local structural information has also been obtained by analyzing the atomic pair distribution functions of these two samples.