Premium
Silicon surface passivation by atomic‐layer‐deposited Al 2 O 3 facilitated in situ by the combination of H 2 O and O 3 as reactants
Author(s) -
Suh Dongchul,
Liang Wensheng
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
physica status solidi (rrl) – rapid research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.786
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1862-6270
pISSN - 1862-6254
DOI - 10.1002/pssr.201409263
Subject(s) - passivation , atomic layer deposition , materials science , oxide , saturation current , analytical chemistry (journal) , silicon , capacitance , layer (electronics) , common emitter , saturation (graph theory) , boron , nanotechnology , optoelectronics , electrode , voltage , chemistry , metallurgy , electrical engineering , engineering , organic chemistry , chromatography , mathematics , combinatorics
We investigate the effect of O 3 and H 2 O oxidant pre‐pulse prior to Al 2 O 3 atomic layer deposition for Si surface passivation. Interfacial oxide SiO x formed by the O 3 pre‐pulse is more beneficial than that by H 2 O to a high level of surface passivation. The passivation of thinner H 2 O–Al 2 O 3 films is more improved by this O 3 pre‐pulse. O 3 pre‐pulse for 10 nm H 2 O–Al 2 O 3 reduces saturation current density in boron emitter to 18 fA cm –2 by a factor of 1.7. Capacitance–voltage measurements reveal this interfacial oxide plays a role of decreasing interface trap density without detrimental effect to negative charge density of Al 2 O 3 . (© 2014 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH &Co. KGaA, Weinheim)