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New Perspectives on Surface Passivation: Understanding the Si-Al2O3 Interface

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Abstract

The surface of a semiconductor is a site of great importance to the operation of devices based on this class of materials. The abrupt structural and material discontinuity represented by the surface results in the presence of numerous structural imperfections, or defects, which greatly facilitate charge-carrier recombination. The presence of such surface recombination is highly detrimental to the performance of many semiconductor devices, and in particular of photovoltaic devices (solar cells). Figure 1.1 shows efficiency versus recombination at the rear surface for a typical high-efficiency commercial solar cell design, illustrating how increasing recombination significantly reduces cell efficiency. The effective suppression of surface recombination, referred to as surface “passivation” is thus essential to the realisation of high-efficiency photovoltaic devices.

I would like to start by emphasizing the importance of surfaces. It is at a surface where many of our most interesting and useful phenomena occur. We live for example on the surface of a planet. It is at a surface where the catalysis of chemical reactions occur. It is essentially at a surface of a plant that sunlight is converted to a sugar. In electronics, most if not all active circuit elements involve non-equilibrium phenomena occurring at surfaces. Much of biology is concerned with reactions at a surface.

— Walter H. Brattain

Surface Properties of Semiconductors

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  1. Research School of Engineering, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

    Lachlan E. Black

  2. Department of Applied Physics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Lachlan E. Black

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Black, L.E. (2016). Introduction. In: New Perspectives on Surface Passivation: Understanding the Si-Al2O3 Interface. Springer Theses. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32521-7_1

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