Low Surface Recombination Velocity Research Articles

Ultrathin Titanium Dioxide Nanolayers by Atomic Layer Deposition for Surface Passivation of Crystalline Silicon

We demonstrate a low surface recombination velocity of 14 cm/s with only 1.5 nm thin titanium dioxide (TiO2 ) layers on undiffused 10 Ωcm p-type crystalline silicon. The TiO2 nanolayers were deposited by thermal atomic layer deposition at 150 °C and 200 °C substrate temperatures using tetrakis-dimethyl-amido titanium as the Ti precursor and water as the oxidant. The influence of a post-deposition anneal in forming gas at different temperatures was investigated. We have observed that a subsequent anneal in forming gas at 350 °C enhances the surface passivation quality of the TiO2 layers tremendously. Increasing the thickness of the TiO2 layers leads to a reduction of the surface passivation quality. Introducing a thin interfacial layer of silicon oxide (1.6 nm) grown by rapid thermal oxidation underneath the TiO2 layer improves the surface passivation of thicker TiO2 layers (5.5 and 15 nm). These results show that ultrathin TiO2 layers with a thickness of only 1.5 nm can be used to effectively passivate the c-Si surface.

Investigation of Firing Conditions for Optimizing Aluminum-Doped p+-layer of Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells

Screen printing technique followed by firing has commonly been used as metallization for both laboratory and industrial based solar cells. In the solar cell industry, the firing process is usually conducted in a belt furnace and needs to be optimized for fabricating high efficiency solar cells. The printed-Al layer on the silicon is rapidly heated at over 800°C which forms a layer of back surface field (BSF) between Si-Al interfaces. The BSF layer forms p-p + structure on the rear side of cells and lower rear surface recombination velocity (SRV). To have low SRV, deep p + layer and uniform junction formation are required. In this experiment, firing process was carried out by using conventional tube furnace with N₂ gas atmosphere to optimize V oc of laboratory cells. To measure the thickness of BSF layer, selective etching was conducted by using a solution composed of hydrogen fluoride, nitric acid and acetic acid. The V oc and pseudo efficiency were measured by Suns-V oc to compare cell properties with varied firing condition.

Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) grown thin films for ultra-fine pitch pixel detectors

In this report we cover two special applications of Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) thin films to solve these challenges of the very small size pixel detectors. First, we propose to passivate the p-type pixel detector with ALD grown Al2O3 field insulator with a negative oxide charge instead of using the commonly adopted p-stop or p-spray technologies with SiO2, and second, to use plasma-enhanced ALD grown titanium nitride (TiN) bias resistors instead of the punch through biasing structures. Surface passivation properties of Al2O3 field insulator was studied by Photoconductive Decay (PCD) method and our results indicate that after appropriate annealing Al2O3 provides equally low effective surface recombination velocity as thermally oxidized Si/SiO2 interface. Furthermore, with properly designed annealing steps, the TiN thin film resistors can be tuned to have up to several MΩ resistances with a few µm of physical size required in ultra-fine pitch pixel detectors.

Defect termination on crystalline silicon surfaces by hydrogen for improvement in the passivation quality of catalytic chemical vapor-deposited SiNx and SiNx/P catalytic-doped layers

We investigate the role of hydrogen (H) in the improvement in the passivation quality of silicon nitride (SiNx) prepared by catalytic chemical vapor deposition (Cat-CVD) and Cat-CVD SiNx/phosphorus (P) Cat-doped layers on crystalline silicon (c-Si) by annealing. Both structures show promising passivation capabilities for c-Si with extremely low surface recombination velocity (SRV) on n-type c-Si. Defect termination by H is evaluated on the basis of defect density (Nd) determined by electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy and interface state density (Dit) calculated by the Terman method. The two parameters are found to be drastically decreased by annealing after SiNx deposition. The calculated average Dit at midgap (Dit-average) is 2.2 × 1011 eV−1 cm−2 for the SiNx/P Cat-doped c-Si sample with a SRV of 2 cm/s, which is equivalent to 3.1 × 1011 eV−1 cm−2 for the SiNx/c-Si sample with a SRV of 5 cm/s after annealing. The results indicate that H atoms play a critical role in the reduction in Dit for SiNx/c-Si and SiNx/P Cat-doped c-Si, resulting in a drastic reduction in SRV by annealing.

A self-powered photodetector based on a CH3NH3PbI3single crystal with asymmetric electrodes

Methylammonium lead iodide perovskite (MAPbI3) has made a re-entry into the literature nowadays for its extraordinary characteristics, such as high absorption of light, long carrier diffusion length, high carrier mobility, low trap-state density, low surface recombination velocity and ease of attainment. Here, we report a self-powered photodetector based on a CH3NH3PbI3 single crystal by employing asymmetric Au–Al electrodes. The key issue of this photodetector was the metal–semiconductor contacts, owing to the Schottky junction between them. By setting the channel length between the Au–Al electrodes to 30 μm for sufficient electron–hole pair separation and transportation, the device showed good performance under 1 sun illumination. The short-circuit photocurrent density and open-circuit voltage were 6.86 mA cm−2 and 0.7 V, respectively. The photocurrent was almost 2 orders of magnitude larger than that based on a perovskite polycrystalline film with a similar device structure. More importantly, the device could detect the lowest noticeable incident power density down to 1 × 10−8 W cm−2. Under this weak light intensity, the responsivity was as high as 0.24 A W−1 without any bias. The photoresponse also had a broadband ranging from 375 nm to 808 nm accompanied by a fast response speed.

원자층 증착법으로 형성된 Al2O3박막의 질소 도핑에 따른 실리콘 표면의 부동화 특성 연구

To improve the efficiency of the Si solar cell, high minority carrier life time is required. Therefore, the passivation technology is important to eliminate point defects on the silicon surface, causing the loss of minority carrier recombination. PECVD or post-annealing of thermally-grown SiO2 is commonly used to form the passivation layer, but a high-temperature process and low thermal stability is a critical factor of low minority carrier lifetime. In this study, atomic layer deposition was used to grow the Al2O3 passivation layer at low temperature process. Al2O3 was selected as a passivation layer which has a low surface recombination velocity because of the fixed charge density. For the high charge density, an improved minority carrier lifetime, and a low surface recombination, nitrogen was doped in the Al2O3 thin film and the improvement of passivation was studied.

Photonic nanostructures for advanced light trapping in silicon solar cells: the impact of etching on the material electronic quality

Dry plasma etching, commonly used by the Photonics community as the etching technique for the fabrication of photonic nanostructures, could be a source of device performance limitations when used in the frame of silicon photovoltaics. So far, the lack of silicon solar cells with state‐of‐the‐art efficiencies utilizing nanophotonic concepts shows how challenging their integration is, owing to the trade‐off between optical and electrical properties. In this study we show that dry plasma etching results in the degradation of the silicon material quality due to (i) a high density of dangling bonds and (ii) the presence of sub‐surface defects, resulting in high surface recombination velocities and low minority carrier lifetimes. On the contrary, wet chemical anisotropic etching used as an alternative, leads to the formation of inverted nanopyramids that result in low surface recombination velocity and low density of dangling bonds. The proposed inverted nanopyramids could enable high efficiency photonic assisted solar cells by offering the potential to achieve higher short‐circuit current without degrading the open circuit voltage. (© 2016 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH &Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Wurtzite-Phased InP Micropillars Grown on Silicon with Low Surface Recombination Velocity.

The direct growth of III-V nanostructures on silicon has shown great promise in the integration of optoelectronics with silicon-based technologies. Our previous work showed that scaling up nanostructures to microsize while maintaining high quality heterogeneous integration opens a pathway toward a complete photonic integrated circuit and high-efficiency cost-effective solar cells. In this paper, we present a thorough material study of novel metastable InP micropillars monolithically grown on silicon, focusing on two enabling aspects of this technology-the stress relaxation mechanism at the heterogeneous interface and the microstructure surface quality. Aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopy studies show that InP grows directly on silicon without any amorphous layer in between. A set of periodic dislocations was found at the heterointerface, relaxing the 8% lattice mismatch between InP and Si. Single crystalline InP therefore can grow on top of the fully relaxed template, yielding high-quality micropillars with diameters expanding beyond 1 μm. An interesting power-dependence trend of carrier recombination lifetimes was captured for these InP micropillars at room temperature, for the first time for micro/nanostructures. By simply combining internal quantum efficiency with carrier lifetime, we revealed the recombination dynamics of nonradiative and radiative portions separately. A very low surface recombination velocity of 1.1 × 10(3) cm/sec was obtained. In addition, we experimentally estimated the radiative recombination B coefficient of 2.0 × 10(-10) cm(3)/sec for pure wurtzite-phased InP. These values are comparable with those obtained from InP bulk. Exceeding the limits of conventional nanowires, our InP micropillars combine the strengths of both nanostructures and bulk materials and will provide an avenue in heterogeneous integration of III-V semiconductor materials onto silicon platforms.

Passivation of silicon surfaces by heat treatment in liquid water at 110 °C

We report the effective passivation of silicon surfaces by heating single-crystalline silicon substrates in liquid water at 110 °C for 1 h. High photo-induced effective minority carrier lifetimes τeff were obtained ranging from 8.3 × 10−4 to 3.1 × 10−3 s and from 1.2 × 10−4 to 6.0 × 10−4 s for the n- and p-type samples, respectively, under 635 nm light illumination, while the τeff values of the initial bare samples were lower than 1.2 × 10−5 s. The heat treatment in liquid water at 110 °C for 1 h resulted in low surface recombination velocities ranging from 7 to 34 cm/s and from 49 to 250 cm/s for the n- and p-type samples, respectively. The photo-conductivity of the n-type sample was increased from 3.8 × 10−3 (initial) to 1.4 × 10−1 S/cm by the present heat treatment under air-mass (AM) 1.5 light illumination at 100 mW/cm2. The thickness of the passivation layer was estimated to be only approximately 0.7 nm. Metal–insulator–semiconductor-type solar cells were demonstrated with Al and Au metal formation on the passivated surface. Rectified current voltage and solar cell characteristics were observed. The open circuit voltages were obtained to be 0.52 and 0.49 V under AM 1.5 light illumination at 100 mW/cm2 for the n- and p-type samples, respectively.

Study of the Surface Recombination Velocity for Ultraviolet and Visible Laser-Fired Contacts Applied to Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells

In this study, we investigate the effect of the laser-firing process on the back surface passivation of p-type silicon heterojunction solar cells. For that purpose, two different nanosecond laser sources radiating at ultraviolet (UV) (355 nm) and visible (532 nm) wavelengths are employed. First, we optimize the laser-firing process in terms of the electrical resistance of locally diffused point contacts. Specific contact resistance values as low as 0.91 and 0.57 mΩ·cm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> are achieved for the visible and ultraviolet laser sources, respectively. In addition, the impact of the laser-firing process on the rear surface passivation is studied by analyzing the internal-quantum-efficiency curves of complete devices. Low surface recombination velocities in the range of 300 cm/s are obtained for the ultraviolet laser with a 1% fraction of contacted area. This value increases to about 700 cm/s for the visible laser, which indicates a significantly higher recombination at the contacted area. The best heterojunction solar cells with rear laser-fired contacts are obtained for the ultraviolet laser and reached a 17.5% conversion efficiency.

Study of the correlation between hydrogenated amorphous silicon microstructure and crystalline silicon surface passivation in heterojunction solar cells

The properties of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a‐Si:H) thin layers were studied by spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) measurements to determine their effects on the surface passivation of crystalline silicon (c‐Si) in heterojunction solar cells. It was demonstrated that the high bulk quality of a‐Si:H layers with denser structures was not sufficient for the passivation of c‐Si surfaces in Silicon Heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells, in which the passivation performance is strongly governed by the total hydrogen content (CH) as a‐Si:H layers are ultra‐thin. High effective carrier lifetime and implied open‐circuit voltage (Voc,im), as well as low surface recombination velocity, were obtained at the appropriate CH values, and the optimal windows of CH and of the hydrogen content in the Si–H2 configuration (C2) were determined to be 5.0 ∼ 8.5 and 2.9 ∼ 6.8 at.%, respectively. For CH values higher than 8.5 at.%, the passivation effect was degraded due to the deteriorated bulk properties of the a‐Si:H layers. However, Voc,im decreased when CH was lower than 5.0 at.% because the number of H atoms was insufficient to saturate the dangling bonds at the a‐Si:H/c‐Si interface even though the a‐Si:H layers had dense microstructures.

Analysis of the Atomic Layer Deposited Al2O3 field-effect passivation in black silicon

We demonstrate that n-type black silicon can be passivated efficiently using Atomic Layer Deposited (ALD) Al2O3, reaching maximum surface recombination velocities below 7 cm/s. We show that the low surface recombination velocity results from a higher sensitivity of the nanostructures to surface charge and from the absence of surface damage after black silicon etching. The surface recombination velocity is shown to be inversely proportional to the fourth power of the negative charge in contrast to the quadratic dependence observed in planar surfaces. This effect compensates the impact of the increased surface area in the nanostructures and extends the potential of black silicon for instance to n-type Interdigitated Back Contact (IBC) cells. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Realization of improved efficiency on nanostructured multicrystalline silicon solar cells for mass production

We report the realization of both excellent optical and electrical properties of nanostructured multicrystalline silicon solar cells by a simple and industrially compatible technique of surface morphology modification. The nanostructures are prepared by Ag-catalyzed chemical etching and subsequent NaOH treatment with controllable geometrical parameters and surface area enhancement ratio. We have examined in detail the influence of different surface area enhancement ratios on reflectance, carrier recombination characteristics and cell performance. By conducting a quantitative analysis of these factors, we have successfully demonstrated a higher-than-traditional output performance of nanostructured multicrystalline silicon solar cells with a low average reflectance of 4.93%, a low effective surface recombination velocity of 6.59 m s−1, and a certified conversion efficiency of 17.75% on large size (156 × 156 mm2) silicon cells, which is ∼0.3% higher than the acid textured counterparts. The present work opens a potential prospect for the mass production of nanostructured solar cells with improved efficiencies.

Investigation of interface quality and passivation improvement with a-SiO:H deposited by ECRCVD at low temperature

Hydrogenated amorphous silicon oxide (a-SiO:H) is an attractive passivation material to replace hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) in heterojunction solar cells due to its properties of high-transparency and a wide band gap. In this study, we investigated the structural properties, optical properties, and passivation quality of a-SiO:H films by varying the ratio of [CO2]/[SiH4]. Both the optical band gap and the absorption coefficient of a-SiO:H films could be conveniently modulated by varying the CO2 partial pressure. High quality passivation with a low surface recombination velocity of approximately 17.4cm/s can be obtained when the ratio of [CO2]/[SiH4]=0.32, due to the suppression of partial epitaxial growth at the interface, resulting in an abrupt interface, which was verified by transmission electron microscopy. Furthermore, the optical absorption coefficient of a-SiO:H ([CO2]/[SiH4]=0.32) decreased by 25% compared with that of the a-Si:H (without CO2) at a wavelength of 300nm. As a result, the high passivation quality was attributed to the properties of the abrupt interface and the sufficient hydrogen content between the a-SiO:H/c-Si interface.

Passivation of Silicon Surfaces by Treatment in Water at 110°C

ABSTRACTWe report effective passivation of silicon surfaces by heating single crystalline silicon substrates in liquid water at 110°C for 1 h. High values of photo-induced effective minority carrier lifetime τeff in the range from 1.9x10-4 to 1.8x10-3 s were obtained for the n-type samples with resistivity in the range from 1.7 to 18.1 Ωcm. τeff ranged from 8.3x10-4 to 3.1x10-3 s and from 1.2x10-4 to 6.0x10-4 s over the area of 4 inch sized 17.0 Ωcm n- and 15.0 Ωcm p-type samples, respectively. The heat treatment in liquid water at 110°C for 1 h resulted in low surface recombination velocities ranging from 7 to 34 cm/s and from 49 to 250 cm/s for those 4 inch sized n- and p-type samples, respectively. The thickness of the passivation layer was estimated to be approximate only 0.7 nm. Metal-insulator-semiconductor type solar cell was demonstrated with Al and Au metal formation on the passivated surface. Rectified current voltage and solar cell characteristics were observed. Open circuit voltage of 0.47 V was obtained under AM 1.5 light illumination at 100 mW/cm2.

On the microwave photoconductivity of bifacial silicon p +-n-n + solar cells

The conversion efficiencies of the base region of a bifacial silicon solar cell are compared under front- and back-side illumination. Calculations reveal that both parameters can be equal when there are extremely high lifetimes of the nonequilibrium carriers in the base and low surface recombination velocities. The results from microwave photoconductivity measurements are consistent with the calculated data.

Influence of Al content on surface passivation properties of Al rich ZnO films for solar cell application

A systematic study of hydrogen sintered aluminum rich zinc oxide (AZO) films is made from the view point of their application as surface passivation layer for silicon solar cell. AZO films of various Al and Zn molar concentration ratios (0<RAl/Zn<40%) are made and their electrical and optical properties are studied. The lowest surface recombination velocity (∼10cm/s) is realized in the film with RAl/Zn≈30% as inferred from minority carrier lifetime measurements. The passivation effect of AZO layer may be attributed to presence of hydrogen whose concentration is maximum (∼3.93×1022atoms/cm3) for RAl/Zn≈30%. Effect of surface passivation is manifested in the efficiency of solar cell where an improvement>4% vis-à-vis the control cell (without AZO layer) is seen after AZO layer is applied on the rear surface of the cell.

Surface passivation and antireflectance performances for atomic-layer-deposited Al2O3 films

Al2O3 films were deposited on single crystalline silicon wafers by atomic layer deposition. Both passivation and antireflectance performances are studied in detail. 30 nm Al2O3 passivated n-type and p-type Si shows a maximum effective minority carrier lifetime (τeff) of ∼5.2 ms and ∼4.7 ms, corresponding to a low surface recombination velocity of ∼3.8 cm s−1 and ∼4.2 cm s−1, respectively. By drawing a contour map of post-deposition annealing (PDA) temperature, PDA time and τeff, a wide PDA window is obtained for obtaining good passivation performances. The excellent passivation performances are related to the large, negative fixed charge density within Al2O3 films and the formation of interfacial SiO2 layer at the Al2O3/Si interface. Antireflectance performances are also studied in detail for Al2O3 and Al2O3/SiNx double-layer on textured Si. For obtaining a low average reflectance between 2.6% and 3%, a wide film-thickness window of ∼30 nm for Al2O3 and SiNx layer is observed for Al2O3/SiNx double-layer on textured Si. Our results indicate that Al2O3 films have excellent surface passivation and antireflectance performances with a wide processing window, which is favorable for c-Si solar cell applications.

Low surface recombination velocity in n-Si passivated by catalytic-chemical vapor deposited alumina films

The surface recombination velocity (S0) in n-type Si (n-Si) wafers has been reduced below 0.1cm/s by dint of positive fixed charges created by alumina (AlOx) films deposited at a film-temperature of 230°C by catalytic chemical vapor deposition (Cat-CVD) using trimethyl aluminum (TMA) and O2. Positive fixed charges of the order of 1012charges/cm2 can be created in AlOx films deposited under O2/TMA flow-rate ratios in the range of 3.5–6.5. The extremely small S0 has been confirmed to be obtainable mainly due to a band bending effect brought about by the positive charges. The polarity and amount of the fixed charges can be determined by the flow-rate ratio of O2/TMA.

Drastic reduction in the surface recombination velocity of crystalline silicon passivated with catalytic chemical vapor deposited SiNx films by introducing phosphorous catalytic-doped layer

We improve the passivation property of n-type crystalline silicon (c-Si) surface passivated with a catalytic chemical vapor deposited (Cat-CVD) Si nitride (SiNx) film by inserting a phosphorous (P)-doped layer formed by exposing c-Si surface to P radicals generated by the catalytic cracking of PH3 molecules (Cat-doping). An extremely low surface recombination velocity (SRV) of 2 cm/s can be achieved for 2.5 Ω cm n-type (100) floating-zone Si wafers passivated with SiNx/P Cat-doped layers, both prepared in Cat-CVD systems. Compared with the case of only SiNx passivated layers, SRV decreases from 5 cm/s to 2 cm/s. The decrease in SRV is the result of field effect created by activated P atoms (donors) in a shallow P Cat-doped layer. Annealing process plays an important role in improving the passivation quality of SiNx films. The outstanding results obtained imply that SiNx/P Cat-doped layers can be used as promising passivation layers in high-efficiency n-type c-Si solar cells.