A study of activated phosphorus distribution within silicon substrate for polysilicon passivating contacts based on an in-line PVD system

An in-line PVD system consisting of plasma oxidation chamber and phosphorus-doped amorphous silicon deposition chamber was used to fabricate highly-doped polysilicon passivating contact structure for commercial TOPCon solar cells, which can help to achieve simple fabrication process and excellent electrical properties. In this paper, we studied how the doping profiles of ionized phosphorus atoms in the passivating contact formed by this method varies with the deposition conditions, especially the in-diffusion profile in the silicon substrate. Increasing the RF power of plasma oxidation can prevent phosphorus from penetrating through SiOx to form a shallow profile, and reducing the power is conducive to the formation of more pinholes on SiOx, resulting in a wide profile following the shallow profile. The shallow profile effectively inhibits the surface recombination rate and thus achieve good passivation quality, while the emergence of the following wide profile helps to reduce the contact resistivity by providing more majority carrier transport channels. The 100 W condition constructed a shallow and gradually widening doping profile, exhibiting a low recombination current density of 16.5 fA/cm2 and a low contact resistivity of 1.87 mΩ·cm2. However, the SiOx thickness and density obtained at 80 W are insufficient for achieving a shallow-first-then-widen doping profile, even with adjustments to thermal activation conditions. Additionally, we found the engineering of surface microstructure on silicon wafers also has an impact on the doping profile.