Impact of ozone-based cleaning on surface recombination with different passivation materials

In this work, the impact of different ozone-based cleaning processes on the level of surface passivation achieved is determined and compared against the RCA cleaning processes. Two different passivation materials are used in this study, including hydrogenated amorphous silicon and silicon nitride plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). Photoconductance measurements and calibrated photoluminescence imaging are used to evaluate the level of passivation achieved and spatial uniformity for the different cleaning processes.