Hydrogen passivation of bulk defects and surface in silicon

Abstract

ABSTRACTMonocrystalline and multicrystalline silicon wafers were investigated with boron doping levels in the range 1015 cm−3 to 1016 cm−3, respectively. Hydrogenation of the samples resulted from hydrogen-rich silicon nitride deposition by plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition on the surface of the wafers. Passivation effects are observed after annealing and evaluated using minority carrier diffusion length (L) measurements, light beam induced current scan maps and lifetime (τ) measurements, by the contact-less phase shift technique. When applied at various excitation frequencies the phase shift technique leads evaluate the surface recombination velocity (S) and the actual bulk lifetime.It was found, in multicrystalline silicon that isolated intragrain defects are well passivated while at grain boundaries and dislocation clusters deep levels are transformed into shallow levels. As a consequence L increases up to 80 % after firing the samples which the back surface was covered by a 2 μm thick aluminium layer. S decreases below 500 cm/s at the front surface covered by the hydrogen rich silicon nitride layer.