Transmission electron microscopy based interface analysis of the origin of the variation in surface recombination of silicon for different surface preparation methods and passivation materials

Abstract

In this work, the root cause of variation in surface recombination for Si wafers after different cleaning processes and for different passivation layers is investigated using a combination of calibrated photoluminescence (PL) imaging and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The use of a HF‐last or oxide‐last cleaning and/or conditioning process is shown to have a strong impact on surface recombination for SiNx passivated surfaces, but little impact for Al2O3/SiNx stacks. For a SiNx passivation layer, cross‐sectional TEM imaging revealed the formation of a ≈1–2 nm SiOx interlayer resulting from a controlled oxidation during the last cleaning/conditioning step. The presence of the SiOx layer reduces the interface defect density (Dit,midgap) by an order of magnitude and dramatically increases the effective carrier lifetime. However, for Al2O3/SiNx passivated surfaces, TEM studies revealed that a SiOx layer is formed at the interface between the c‐Si and AlOx even for cleaning processes ending with HF‐last treatment due to which the cleaning sequence has minimal impact on the effective carrier lifetime.