SIMS Study on the Diffusion of Al in Si and Si QD Layer by Heat Treatment

Aluminum is widely used as a material for electrode on silicon based devices. Especially, aluminum films are used as backside and front-side electrodes in silicon quantum dot (QD) solar cells. In this point, the diffusion of aluminum is very important for the enhancement of power conversion efficiency by improvement of contact property. Aluminum was deposited on a Si (100) wafer and a Si QD layer by ion beam sputter system with a DC ion gun. The Si QD layer was fabricated by $1100^{\circ}C$ annealing of the $SiO_2/SiO_1$ multilayer film grown by ion beam sputtering deposition. Cs ion beam with a low energy and a grazing incidence angle was used in SIMS depth profiling analysis to obtain high depth resolution. Diffusion behavior of aluminum in the Al/Si and Al/Si QD interfaces was investigated by secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) as a function of heat treatment temperature. It was found that aluminum is diffused into Si substrate at $450^{\circ}C$. In this presentation, the effect of heat treatment temperature and Si nitride diffusion barrier on the diffusion of Al will be discussed.