Behind the Nature of Titanium Oxide Excellent Surface Passivation and Carrier Selectivity of c-Si

We present an expanded study of the passivation properties of titanium dioxide (TiO2) on p-type crystalline silicon (c-Si). We report a low surface recombination velocity (16 cm/s) for TiO2 passivation layers with a thin tunnelling oxide interlayer (SiO2 or Al2O3) on p-type crystalline silicon (c-Si).

The TiO2 films were deposited by thermal atomic layer deposition (ALD) at temperatures in the range of 80-300  ̊C using titanium tetrachloride (TiCl4) as Ti precursor and water as the oxidant. The influence of TiO2 thickness (5, 10, 20 nm), presence of additional tunneling interlayer (SiO2 or Al2O3), and post-deposition annealing temperature were investigated.

We have observed that that SiO2 and Al2O3 interlayers enhance the TiO2 passivation of c-Si. TiO2 thin film passivation layers alone result in lower effective carrier lifetime. Further annealing at 200  ̊C in N2 gas enhances the surface passivation quality of TiO2 tremendously.