Effectiveness of 0.08 molar iodine in ethanol solution as a means of chemical surface passivation for photoconductance decay measurements

In a recent study of various chemical passivation solutions, Horanyi et al. suggested that 0.08 molar ethanol/iodine solution is an effective passivating medium for silicon surfaces. However, other work suggested that the degree of surface passivation for this solution is low compared to that achieved by corona discharge passivation. In this article it is shown that in combination with a bias light, the surface passivation of 0.08 molar ethanol/iodine solution can be of superior quality compared to thermally grown passivating oxides. Since the degree of surface passivation can be bounded, this method also allows extraction of a bulk lifetime estimate.