Recombination reduction at the c-Si/RCA oxide interface through Ar-H2 plasma treatment

An Ar‑H2 plasma treatment was applied on an ultrathin RCA oxide to create well-passivated silicon wafers with symmetric c‑Si/SiOx:H/a‑Si:H passivation layer stacks. The effective lifetime of these samples increased from 10 μs to 4 ms after annealing at 200°C through Ar‑H2 plasma treatment of the oxi...

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Published inApplied surface science Vol. 396; pp. 1226 - 1230
Main Authors Landheer, Kees, Bronsveld, Paula C.P., Poulios, Ioannis, Tichelaar, Frans D., Kaiser, Monja, Schropp, Ruud E.I., Rath, Jatin K.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Elsevier B.V 28.02.2017
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Summary:An Ar‑H2 plasma treatment was applied on an ultrathin RCA oxide to create well-passivated silicon wafers with symmetric c‑Si/SiOx:H/a‑Si:H passivation layer stacks. The effective lifetime of these samples increased from 10 μs to 4 ms after annealing at 200°C through Ar‑H2 plasma treatment of the oxide. The results indicate that the plasma treatment can modify the RCA oxide and this enables atomic hydrogen diffusion at low annealing temperature, leading to a well passivated c‑Si/SiOx:H interface. This might provide new possibilities to use wet chemical oxides in c-Si solar cells, for example as tunnel contacts.
ISSN:0169-4332
1873-5584
DOI:10.1016/j.apsusc.2016.11.119