Schmidt, JanKerr, Mark John2003-08-252004-05-192011-01-052004-05-192011-01-0519990927-0248http://hdl.handle.net/1885/40869http://digitalcollections.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/40869The surface passivation properties of silicon nitride (SiN) films fabricated by high-frequency direct plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) on low-resistivity (1 &cm) p-type silicon solar cell substrates have been investigated. The process gases used were ammonia and a mixture of silane and nitrogen. In order to find the optimum set of SiN deposition parameters, a large number of carrier lifetime test structures were prepared under different deposition conditions. The optimised deposition parameters resulted in outstandingly low surface recombination velocities (SRVs) below 10 cm/s. Interestingly, we find the lowest SRVs for stoichiometric SiN films, as indicated by a refractive index of 1.9. In former studies similarly low SRVs had only been obtained for very silicon-rich SiN films. The fundamentally different passivation behaviour of our SiN films is attributed to the addition of nitrogen to the process gases.82918 bytes357 bytesapplication/pdfapplication/octet-streamen-AUsilicon nitridesurface passivationPECVDsiliconsolar cells19992015-12-10