ABSTRACT
High quality surface passivation has gained a significant importance in photovoltaic industry for reducing the surface recombination and hence fabricating low cost and high efficiency solar cells using thinner wafers. The formation of good-quality SiO2 films and SiO2/Si interfaces at low processing temperatures is a prerequisite for improving the conversion efficiency of industrial solar cells with better passivation. High-temperature annealing in inert ambient is promising to improve the SiO2/Si interface. However, annealing treatments could cause negative effects on SiO2/Si interfaces due to its chemical at high temperatures. Low temperature post oxidation annealing has been carried out to investigate the structural and interface properties of Si-SiO2 system. Quasi Steady State Photo Conductance measurements shows a promising effective carrier lifetime of 420 µs, surface recombination velocity of 22 cm/s and a low interface trap density (D(it)) of 4 x 10(11) states/cm2/eV after annealing. The fixed oxide charge density was reduced to 1 x 10(11)/cm2 due to the annealing at 500 degrees C. The FWHM and the Si-O peak wavenumber corresponding to the samples annealed at 500 degrees C reveals that the Si dangling bonds in the SiO2 films due to the oxygen defects was reduced by the low temperature post oxidation annealing.
ABSTRACT
Nonvolatile memory (NVM) with silicon dioxide/silicon nitride/silicon oxynitride (ONO(n)) charge trap structure is a promising flash memory technology duo that will fulfill process compatibility for system-on-panel displays, down-scaling cell size and low operation voltage. In this research, charge trap flash devices were fabricated with ONO(n) stack gate insulators and an active layer using hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon germanium (nc-SiGe:H) films at a low temperature. In this study, the effect of the interface trap density on the performance of devices, including memory window and retention, was investigated. The electrical characteristics of NVM devices were studied controlling Ge content from 0% to 28% in the nc-SiGe:H channel layer. The optimal Ge content in the channel layer was found to be around 16%. For nc-SiGe:H NVM with 16% Ge content, the memory window was 3.13 V and the retention data exceeded 77% after 10 years under the programming condition of 15 V for 1 msec. This showed that the memory window increased by 42% and the retention increased by 12% compared to the nc-Si:H NVM that does not contain Ge. However, when the Ge content was more than 16%, the memory window and retention property decreased. Finally, this research showed that the Ge content has an effect on the interface trap density and this enabled us to determine the optimal Ge content.
ABSTRACT
High quality surface passivation has gained a significant importance in photovoltaic industry for fabricating low cost and high efficiency solar cells using thinner and lower cost wafers. The passivation property of spin coated Al2O3 films with a thickness of about 50 nm on p-type Cz-Si wafers has been investigated as a function of annealing temperatures. An effective surface recombination velocity of 55 cm/s was obtained for the films annealed at 500 °C. The chemical and field effect passivation was analyzed by C-V measurements. A high density of negative fixed charges (Qf) in the order of 9 x 10(11) cm(-2) was detected in Al2O3 films and its impact on the level of surface passivation was demonstrated experimentally. The C-V curves show density of the interface state (Dit) of 1 x 10(12) eV(-1)cm(-2) at annealing temperature of 500 °C. During annealing, a thin interfacial SiOx is formed, and this interfacial layer is supposed to play a vital role in the origin of negative QF and Dit. The homogeneous SiOx interlayer result in higher passivation performance due to both the increase of negative Qf and the decrease of Dit.
