Electrical characterization of MIS devices using PECVD SiNx:H films for application of silicon solar cells

The surface passivation of crystalline silicon solar cells using plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD), hydrogenated, silicon-nitride (SiN (x) :H) thin films has become significant due to a low-temperature, low-cost and very effective defect passivation process. Also, a good quality antireflection coating can be formed. In this work, SiN (x) :H thin films were deposited by varying the gas ratio R (=NH3/SiH4+NH3) and were annealed by rapid thermal processing (RTP). Metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) devices were fabricated using SiN (x) :H thin films as insulator layers and they were analyzed in the temperature range of 100-400 K by using capacitance-voltage (C-V) and current-voltage (I-V) measurements. The annealed SiN (x) :H thin films were evaluated by using the electrical properties at different temperature to determine the effect of surface passivation. We achieved an energy conversion efficiency of 18.1% under one-sun standard testing conditions for large-area (156 mm x 156 mm) crystalline-silicon solar cells.