title: Influence of Fabrication Processes and Annealing Treatment on the Minority Carrier Lifetime of Silicon Nanowire Films.
abstract: Surface passivation and bulk carrier lifetime of silicon nanowires (SiNWs) are essential for their application in solar cell devices. The effective minority carrier lifetime of a semiconductor material is influenced by both its surface passivation and bulk carrier lifetime. We found that the effective carrier lifetime of SiNWs passivated with aluminum oxide (Al2O3) was significantly influenced by the fabrication process of SiNWs. We could not measure the effective lifetime of SiNWs fabricated by thermal annealing of amorphous silicon nanowires. Nevertheless, the SiNWs fabricated by metal-assisted chemical etching of polycrystalline silicon displayed an effective lifetime of 2.86 μs. Thermal annealing of SiNWs at 400 °C in a forming gas improved the effective carrier lifetime from 2.86 to 15.9 μs because of the improvement in surface passivation at the interface between the SiNWs and Al2O3layers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Showa-ku, Nagoya-shi, Aichi, 466-8555, Japan. kato.shinya@nitech.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Shinya
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5010-5164
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kato
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Electronics, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, 152-8552, Japan.
authors.forename: Tatsuya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yamazaki
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Aichi, 464-8603, Japan.
authors.forename: Yasuyoshi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kurokawa
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, 152-8552, Japan.
authors.forename: Shinsuke
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Miyajima
authors.affiliation: Advanced Research laboratories, Tokyo City University, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, 158-0082, Japan.|FUTURE-PV Innovation, Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Koriyama, Fukushima, 963-0215, Japan.
authors.forename: Makoto
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Konagai
keywords: Minority carrier lifetime; Passivation; Silicon nanowire