Thermal activation energy for the passivation of the n-type crystalline silicon surface by hydrogenated amorphous silicon

被引：41
作者：
Mitchell, Jonathon [1 ]
Macdonald, Daniel [1 ]
Cuevas, Andres [1 ]
机构：
[1] Australian Natl Univ, Sch Engn, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia
来源：
APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS | 2009年 / 94卷 / 16期
基金：
澳大利亚研究理事会;
关键词：
amorphous semiconductors; annealing; carrier lifetime; diffusion; elemental semiconductors; hydrogen; hydrogenation; passivation; semiconductor thin films; silicon; surface chemistry; CELLS;
D O I：
10.1063/1.3120765
中图分类号：
O59 [应用物理学];
学科分类号：
摘要：
Excellent surface passivation of crystalline silicon wafers is known to occur following post-deposition thermal annealing of intrinsic a-Si:H thin-film layers deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition. In this work, layer thicknesses ranging from 5 to 50 nm were used to indirectly study the surface passivation mechanism by sequentially measuring the effective carrier lifetime as a function of annealing time and temperature. From this, an activation energy of 0.7 +/- 0.1 eV was calculated, suggesting that surface passivation is reaction-limited and not determined by a bulk hydrogen diffusion process. We conclude that the primary surface reaction stems from surface rearrangement of hydrogen already near the interface.
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