Characterization of tunnel oxide passivated contact with n-type poly-Si on p-type c-Si wafer substrate

The junction properties of tunnel silicon oxide (SiOx) passivated contact (TOPCon) with n-type poly-Si on p-type c-Si wafer are characterized using current-voltage (J-V) and capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurements. The dark J-V curves show a standard diode characteristic with a turn-on voltage of similar to 0.63 V, indicating a p-n junction is formed. While the C-V curve displays an irregular shape with features of 1) a slow C increase with the decrease of the magnitude of reverse bias voltage, being used to estimate the built-in potential (V-bi), 2) a significant increase at a given positive bias voltage, corresponding to the geometric capacitance crossing the ultrathin SiOx, and 3) a sharp decrease to negative values, resulting from the charge tunneling through the SiOx layer. The C of depleting layer deviates from the normal linear curve in the 1/C-2-V plot, which is caused by the diffusion of P dopants from the n-type poly-Si into the p-type c-Si wafer as confirmed by the electrochemical capacitance-voltage measurements. However, the 1/C2+gamma-V plots with gamma > 0 leads to linear curves with a proper gamma and the V-bi can still be estimated. We find that the V-bi is the range of 0.75-0.85 V, increases with the increase of the doping ratio during the poly-Si fabrication process, and correlates with the passivation quality as measured by the reverse saturated current and implied open circuit voltage extracted from transient photoconductivity decay.