Study of porous silicon layer effect in optoelectronics properties of crystalline silicon

Abstract

In this research, we experimentally and numerically demonstrate the beneficial effect of superficial porous silicon layer in the optoelectronics properties of multi-crystalline silicon. The hydrogen and oxygen-rich porous silicon layer was formed using vapor etching method. From laser beam induced current (LBIC) simulations, we found that the hydrogen and oxygen-rich porous silicon layer used in mc-Si surface acts as a good surface passivation and a potential candidate for electronic quality and optoelectronics properties improvement. As a result, the generated current of treated silicon is 5 times greater as compared to reference substrate, which led to a 50% increase of the minority carrier diffusion length, 25% decrease in the recombination velocity of the minority carrier and the reflectivity reduced from 38 to 3% of the related sample.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Multicrystalline silicon
• LBIC
• vapor etching
• oxygen and hydrogen
• passivation

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Research and Technology Centre of Energy (CRTEn). Our gratitude to Professor Wissem Dimassi, director of LaNSER, Tunisia.

Disclosure Statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.