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Hydrogen Passivation for Estimating the Bulk Lifetime of Bare Silicon Wafers
Author(s) -
Juhl Mattias K.,
Western Ned,
Bremner Stephen
Publication year - 2018
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.201800093
Subject(s) - passivation , wafer , silicon , semiconductor , carrier lifetime , materials science , optoelectronics , hydrogen , dielectric , semiconductor device , engineering physics , ohm , electronic engineering , analytical chemistry (journal) , nanotechnology , electrical engineering , chemistry , engineering , layer (electronics) , organic chemistry , chromatography
This paper reports a simple procedure to create a temporary hydrogen‐terminated surface with a surface recombination velocity down to 25 cm s −1 on 1 Ohm‐cm (100) oriented silicon, and remains below 50 cm s −1 for 30 min. The method is robust, uses common semiconductor chemicals, is performed at low temperature (<80 °C) and results in a sample free of dangerous chemicals. This enables measurement of the bulk lifetime of a semiconductor, an essential property for minority carrier‐based devices, without the requirement of a passivating dielectric. While several methods exist to passivate a silicon surface, they either require: dangerous chemicals; processing steps that may change the bulk lifetime, such as high temperature; or are not compatible with standard characterisation techniques. This approach avoids all these issues.