title: Effects of Low Temperature Anneal on the Interface Properties of Thermal Silicon Oxide for Silicon Surface Passivation.
abstract: High quality surface passivation has gained a significant importance in photovoltaic industry for reducing the surface recombination and hence fabricating low cost and high efficiency solar cells using thinner wafers. The formation of good-quality SiO2 films and SiO2/Si interfaces at low processing temperatures is a prerequisite for improving the conversion efficiency of industrial solar cells with better passivation. High-temperature annealing in inert ambient is promising to improve the SiO2/Si interface. However, annealing treatments could cause negative effects on SiO2/Si interfaces due to its chemical at high temperatures. Low temperature post oxidation annealing has been carried out to investigate the structural and interface properties of Si-SiO2 system. Quasi Steady State Photo Conductance measurements shows a promising effective carrier lifetime of 420 μs, surface recombination velocity of 22 cm/s and a low interface trap density (D(it)) of 4 x 10(11) states/cm2/eV after annealing. The fixed oxide charge density was reduced to 1 x 10(11)/cm2 due to the annealing at 500 degrees C. The FWHM and the Si-O peak wavenumber corresponding to the samples annealed at 500 degrees C reveals that the Si dangling bonds in the SiO2 films due to the oxygen defects was reduced by the low temperature post oxidation annealing.
authors.forename: Nagarajan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Balaji
authors.forename: Cheolmin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Sungyoun
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chung
authors.forename: Minkyu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ju
authors.forename: Jayapal
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Raja
authors.forename: Junsin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yi