Detailed Analysis of Amorphous Silicon Passivation Layers Deposited in Industrial In-Line and Laboratory-type PECVD Reactors


Detailed Analysis of Amorphous Silicon Passivation Layers Deposited in Industrial In-Line and Laboratory-type PECVD Reactors

Hofmann, M.; Schmidt, C.; Kohn, N.; Grambole, D.; Rentsch, J.; Glunz, S.; Preu, R.

Amorphous silicon (a-Si) layers for the passivation of p-type silicon wafer surfaces are investigated. The first main topic is the thermal stability of a-Si passivation. Here, an improved thermal stability in annealing (400 °C) and firing processes (wafer temp. 550 °C) could be achieved by stacking a-Si layers with PECVD SiOx layers of different thickness. Hydrogen depth profiling using nuclear reaction analysis shows a hydrogen concentration of 11 at% in the bulk of the a-Si. After firing of single layer a-Si samples a hydrogen concentration peak at the a-Si / c-Si interface could be observed. The second major topic of this paper is the deposition of a-Si layers using an industrial-type inline PECVD reactor. Excellent surface passivation (>1 ms on 1 Ohm cm FZ wafers) can be reported. These a-Si layers are further characterised using FTIR and spectroscopic ellipsometry.

Keywords: a-Si; annealing; CVD based deposition; lifetime; PECVD

  • Lecture (Conference)
    22nd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, 03.-07.09.2007, Milano, Italy
  • Contribution to proceedings
    22nd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, 03.-07.09.2007, Milano, Italy
    Proceedings of 22nd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, 1528-1531

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Publ.-Id: 10233