Plasma Etching Conditioning of Textured Crystalline Silicon Surfaces for a-Si/c-Si Heterojunctions

The development of a hybrid heterojunction fabricated by growing ultrathin amorphous silicon by Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition using temperatures below 250°C offers the potential of obtaining high efficiency solar cells deposited on glassy substrates. The surface preparation represents one of the most critical steps. The first aim of etching is to remove the native oxide layer from the surface of the crystalline wafer, before amorphous layer deposition. The possibility of obtaining this goal with a dry procedure that reduces the exposure of the sample to the environment is not trivial.We performed several dry etching processes but the best results were obtained using an etching process involving CF4/O2 gases. We have found evidence that plasma etching acts by removing the native oxide and the damaged surface of textured silicon and by leaving an active layer on silicon surface suitable for the emitter deposition. SEM analysis has confirmed that it is possible to find plasma process conditions where no appreciable damage and changes in surface morphology are induced. Detailed investigation was performed to find compatibility and optimization of amorphous layer deposition both on flat and textured cast silicon by changing the plasma process parameters. By using this process we achieved on cast silicon for solar applications photovoltaic conversion efficiencies of 12.9% on 51 cm2 and 9.2% on 45 cm2 active areas for amorphous crystalline heterostructure devices realized on monocrystalline and polycrystalline silicon respectively. We also investigated the compatibility of the process with industrial production of large area devices.