Simple Wet-Chemical Cleanings for High-Efficiency Silicon Solar Cell Applications

Abstract

Simple two-step wet-chemical cleans composed of an oxidizing step with in water dissolved ozone followed by an etching step have been studied for high-efficient hetero-junction silicon solar cell applications. For this purpose flat Si (111) samples passivated with amorphous silicon have been investigated. The effect of nanoroughness of the crystalline silicon surface on the minority carrier lifetime is shown. An influence of the storage time between cleaning and a-Si:H deposition was found and can partly be attributed to changes in surface roughness and native oxide growth.