Effect of hydrogen on passivation quality of SiNx/Si-rich SiNx stacked layers deposited by catalytic chemical vapor deposition on c-Si wafers

Abstract

We investigate the role of hydrogen content and fixed charges of catalytic chemical vapor deposited (Cat-CVD) SiNx/Si-rich SiNx stacked layers on the quality of crystalline silicon (c-Si) surface passivation. Calculated density of fixed charges is on the order of 1012cm−2, which is high enough for effective field effect passivation. Hydrogen content in the films is also found to contribute significantly to improvement in passivation quality of the stacked layers. Furthermore, Si-rich SiNx films deposited with H2 dilution show better passivation quality of SiNx/Si-rich SiNx stacked layers than those prepared without H2 dilution. Effective minority carrier lifetime (τeff) in c-Si passivated by SiNx/Si-rich SiNx stacked layers is as high as 5.1ms when H2 is added during Si-rich SiNx deposition, which is much higher than the case of using Si-rich SiNx films prepared without H2 dilution showing τeff of 3.3ms.