The influence of crystal orientation on surface passivation in multi-crystalline silicon

Authors: Sio, H.C., Phang, S.P., Wan, Y., Liang, W., Trupke, T., Cao, S., Hu, D. and Macdonald, D.

Journal: Conference Record of the IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference

Pages: 1770-1775

ISBN: 9781479932993

ISSN: 0160-8371

DOI: 10.1109/PVSC.2013.6744486

Abstract:

We present an approach to study the variation of the surface recombination velocity in multi-crystalline silicon wafers through photoluminescence imaging for thin, passivated and mirror polished wafers. The influence of crystal orientation on surface passivation is investigated for various passivating films, including silicon nitride and aluminum oxide. Our results show that the influence of surface orientation is negligible in well passivated multi-crystalline silicon wafers due to the detrimental effects of crystal defects. Our study on hydrogenated samples suggests that aluminum oxide passivation exhibits a similar surface dependence as native oxide passivation. A slight and different surface dependence is observed in one of the silicon nitride films used in the study. © 2013 IEEE.

Source: Scopus