The presented work deals with phosphorus diffusion gettering of mc material. A significant improvement of electronic material quality after diffusion is reported. Additionally to POCle diffusion some wafers undergo deposition and firing of PECVD SiNx to study hydrogen passivation and to allow for a better comparability to solar cell results. Spatially resolved μPCD lifetime measurements provide insight into how various defect types react to different diffusion processes. 2x2 cm2 solar cells produced in a photolithography based cell process allow detailed analysis of different defect regions. The interstitial iron content is lowered under the detection limit after POCl3-diffusion. Both lifetime measurements and cell results indentify the diffusion process with low unloading temperature as the optimum one among processes without additional holding step at unloading temperature. Comparing processes with holding time at unloading temperature, the reference diffusion with higher unloading temperature turns out to be the best one.