Lifetime degradation of n-type Czochralski silicon after hydrogenation
| Autor: | Jack Mullins, L.I. Murin, Anthony R. Peaker, João A. P. Coutinho, M. Vaqueiro-Contreras, Vladimir P. Markevich, Matthew P. Halsall, Robert Falster, Jeff Binns |
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| Rok vydání: | 2018 |
| Předmět: |
010302 applied physics
Materials science Deep-level transient spectroscopy Silicon Hydrogen Passivation business.industry Photoconductivity Analytical chemistry General Physics and Astronomy chemistry.chemical_element 02 engineering and technology Carrier lifetime 021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology 01 natural sciences law.invention Semiconductor National Graphene Institute chemistry law ResearchInstitutes_Networks_Beacons/national_graphene_institute 0103 physical sciences Solar cell 0210 nano-technology business |
| Zdroj: | Vaqueiro Contreras, M, Markevich, V, Mullins, J, Halsall, M, Murin, L I, Falster, R, Binns, J, Coutinho, J & Peaker, A 2018, ' Lifetime degradation of n-type Czochralski silicon after hydrogenation ', Journal of Applied Physics, vol. 123, 161415 . https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5011351 |
| ISSN: | 1089-7550 0021-8979 |
| DOI: | 10.1063/1.5011351 |
| Popis: | Hydrogen plays an important role in the passivation of interface states in silicon-based metal-oxide semiconductor technologies and passivation of surface and interface states in solar silicon. We have shown recently [Vaqueiro-Contreras et al., Phys. Status Solidi RRL 11, 1700133 (2017)] that hydrogenation of n-type silicon slices containing relatively large concentrations of carbon and oxygen impurity atoms {[Cs] ≥ 1 × 1016 cm−3 and [Oi] ≥ 1017 cm−3} can produce a family of C-O-H defects, which act as powerful recombination centres reducing the minority carrier lifetime. In this work, evidence of the silicon's lifetime deterioration after hydrogen injection from SiNx coating, which is widely used in solar cell manufacturing, has been obtained from microwave photoconductance decay measurements. We have characterised the hydrogenation induced deep level defects in n-type Czochralski-grown Si samples through a series of deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS), minority carrier transient spectroscopy (MCTS), and high-resolution Laplace DLTS/MCTS measurements. It has been found that along with the hydrogen-related hole traps, H1 and H2, in the lower half of the gap reported by us previously, hydrogenation gives rise to two electron traps, E1 and E2, in the upper half of the gap. The activation energies for electron emission from the E1 and E2 trap levels have been determined as 0.12, and 0.14 eV, respectively. We argue that the E1/H1 and E2/H2 pairs of electron/hole traps are related to two energy levels of two complexes, each incorporating carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen atoms. Our results show that the detrimental effect of the C-O-H defects on the minority carrier lifetime in n-type Si:O + C materials can be very significant, and the carbon concentration in Czochralski-grown silicon is a key parameter in the formation of the recombination centers. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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