Effect of annealing temperature on Al2O3 layer for the passivation of crystalline silicon solar cell

The fixed negative charge of the Al2O3 passivation layer gives excellent passivation performance for both n-type and p-type silicon wafers. For the best passivation quality, annealing is known to be a prerequisite step and a lot of studies concerning annealing effect on the passivation characteristics have been performed. Meanwhile, for manufacturing a crystalline silicon solar cell, firing process is applied to the Al2O3 passivation layer. Therefore, study on not only annealing effect but also on firing effect is necessary. In this work, Al2O3 passivation performance (minority carrier lifetime) for p-type silicon wafer was evaluated with Quasi-Steady-State Photoconductance(QSSPC) measurement after annealing at different temperatures. For the samples which showed different aspects, C-V measurement was performed for the cause - whether it is due to the chemical effect or field-effect. The change in Al2O3 passivation property after firing processes was investigated and the mechanism for the change could be estimated.