Properties of black silicon obtained at room-temperature by different plasma modes

Black silicon plasma technology begins to be integrated into the process flow of silicon solar cells. However, most of the current technology is used at cryogenic or very low substrate temperatures. Here, the authors investigate the temperature-dependent properties of black silicon prepared by two different plasma etching techniques for black silicon, a pure capacitively coupled process (CCP), and an inductively and capacitively coupled process (ICP+CCP). It turns out that the ICP+CCP process at room-temperature yields black silicon samples with 93% absorption and minority carrier lifetime above 1 ms. The authors show that these optoelectronic properties are comparable to samples obtained at low temperatures. (C) 2015 American Vacuum Society.