TY - JOUR
T1 - Silicon surface passivation by sputtered aluminium oxide
T2 - Influence of annealing temperature and ambient gas
AU - Zhang, Xinyu
AU - Thomson, Andrew
AU - Cuevas, Andres
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 The Electrochemical Society.
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Aluminium oxide (AlOx) films have achieved excellent passivation on crystalline-silicon surfaces. Irrespective of the deposition method, an anneal is required to activate the passivation. In this work, the reaction kinetics of the annealing process for radiofrequency reactively-sputtered AlOx is investigated. The effectiveness of the activation anneal critically depend on the ambient gas. A gas mixture of N2 and H2 is found to be the best annealing ambient for sputtered Al2O3 films, leading to an effective surface recombination velocity Seff of ∼5 cm/s. The experiments indicate that the surface passivation anneal follows an activation energy EA close to 1.1 eV.
AB - Aluminium oxide (AlOx) films have achieved excellent passivation on crystalline-silicon surfaces. Irrespective of the deposition method, an anneal is required to activate the passivation. In this work, the reaction kinetics of the annealing process for radiofrequency reactively-sputtered AlOx is investigated. The effectiveness of the activation anneal critically depend on the ambient gas. A gas mixture of N2 and H2 is found to be the best annealing ambient for sputtered Al2O3 films, leading to an effective surface recombination velocity Seff of ∼5 cm/s. The experiments indicate that the surface passivation anneal follows an activation energy EA close to 1.1 eV.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84924052386&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1149/2.0021412ssl
DO - 10.1149/2.0021412ssl
M3 - Article
SN - 2162-8742
VL - 3
SP - N37-N39
JO - ECS Solid State Letters
JF - ECS Solid State Letters
IS - 11
ER -