Demonstration of Excellent Crystalline Silicon Surface Passivation (S < 1.27 cm/s) by High‐Rate DC‐Sputtered Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon

The surface passivation quality of intrinsic hydrogenated amorphous silicon (i‐a‐Si:H) layers deposited by constant DC power‐facing target sputtering (FTS) technology has been investigated. An n‐type crystalline silicon wafer passivated with a 42‐nm‐thick i‐a‐Si:H shows an effective carrier lifetime of 11 ms, which corresponds to a low upper limit effective surface recombination velocity S eff of 1.27 cm/s. An ultra‐thin 5‐nm thick i‐a‐Si:H film achieves an implied open circuit voltage (i V oc ) of 730 mV at a high deposition rate of 31 nm/min. We find that constant DC‐FTS does not cause sputtering damage under high deposition rate conditions. This work demonstrates that i‐a‐Si:H deposited by constant DC‐FTS can achieve the same passivation quality as the i‐a‐Si:H deposited by plasma‐enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) or catalytic chemical vapor deposition (Cat‐CVD), paving the way for the fabrication of silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells without the use of explosive and toxic gases. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.