학술논문

Electronic Band Offset Determination of Oxides Grown by Atomic Layer Deposition on Silicon
Document Type
Periodical
Source
IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics IEEE J. Photovoltaics Photovoltaics, IEEE Journal of. 13(5):682-690 Sep, 2023
Subject
Photonics and Electrooptics
Silicon
Hafnium oxide
Tunneling
Photovoltaic systems
Atomic layer deposition
Photovoltaic cells
Substrates
++%24%5F{2}%24<%2Ftex-math>+<%2Finline-formula>+<%2Fnamed-content>O++%24%5F{3}%24<%2Ftex-math>+<%2Finline-formula>+<%2Fnamed-content>%29%22">Aluminum oxide (Al $_{2}$ O $_{3}$ )
atomic layer deposition (ALD)
band offset
carrier-selective passivating contacts
++%24%5F{2}%24<%2Ftex-math>+<%2Finline-formula>+<%2Fnamed-content>%29%22">Hafnium oxide (HfO $_{2}$ )
silicon
++%24%5F{2}%24<%2Ftex-math>+<%2Finline-formula>+<%2Fnamed-content>%29%22">silicon dioxide (SiO $_{2}$ )
Language
ISSN
2156-3381
2156-3403
Abstract
Minimizing electrical losses at metal/silicon interfaces in high-efficiency single-junction silicon solar cells requires the use of carrier-selective passivating contacts. The electronic barrier heights at the insulator/silicon interface are necessary for calculating the probability of quantum tunneling of charge carriers at these interfaces. Thus, precise knowledge of these parameters is crucial for the development of contact schemes. Using a photoemission-based method, we experimentally determine the electronic band offsets of Al 2 O 3 , HfO 2 and SiO 2 layers grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD) on silicon. For Al 2 O 3 /Si, we determine a valence band offset (Δ E V ) and conduction band offset (Δ E C ) of 3.29 ± 0.07 eV and 2.24 ± 0.13 eV, respectively. For HfO 2 /Si, Δ E V and Δ E C are determined as 2.67 ± 0.07 eV and 1.81 ± 0.21 eV, while for SiO 2 /Si, Δ E V and Δ E C are 4.87 ± 0.07 eV and 2.61 ± 0.12 eV, respectively. Using technology computer-aided design simulations, we incorporate our experimental results to estimate the contact resistivity that would be attained at various dielectric layer thicknesses. We find that for achieving the 100 mΩ·cm 2 contact resistivity benchmark, Al 2 O 3 layers should be no thicker than 1.65 nm for a p -type polysilicon-based hole-selective contact, assuming hole tunneling masses taken from the literature. Correspondingly, for HfO 2 and SiO 2 , an upper limit of 1.4 nm is determined as the thickness threshold in order to utilize these ALD-grown layers for contacts in high-performance silicon photovoltaics.