Characterization of a-Si:H/c-Si interfaces by effective-lifetime measurements -: art. no. 093711

This article studies theoretically and experimentally the recombination at the amorphous/crystalline silicon interface of a heterojunction with intrinsic thin layer (HIT) structure without metallization. We propose a physical model to calculate the interface recombination rate under illumination. This model calculates the effective lifetime tau(eff) as a function of the average excess minority carrier concentration <Delta n >. In order to test the model, we prepared a set of HIT structures. The dependence of tau(eff) vs <Delta n > of the samples is measured using the quasi-steady-state photoconductance technique. By fitting our model to the experimental data, we determine the a-Si:H/c-Si interface parameters and the doping density of the amorphous layer. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.