Evaluating the Impact of SiN x Thickness on Lifetime Degradation in Silicon

There has been continuous effort to understand the cause of light- and elevated-temperature-induced degradation (LeTID) in silicon solar cells; however, the actual origin of the defect is still under investigation. Multiple reports in the literature suggest the involvement of hydrogen in activating the recombination-active defect that is responsible for this degradation. In this paper, we investigate the influence of the amount of in-diffused hydrogen in the bulk on the degradation in silicon lifetime test structures. We examine this by varying the thickness of hydrogenated silicon nitride (SiN x :H) before high-temperature firing. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy is performed to confirm that the hydrogen content in SiN x :H film scales with its thickness. We observe that an increase in the thickness of hydrogen-rich SiN x :H leads to an almost proportional increase in the extent of defect concentration in multicrystalline silicon wafers. We attribute this increase to the higher amount of hydrogen released from thicker SiN x :H layers into the bulk during firing. This paper provides further evidence for the involvement of hydrogen in the formation of the LeTID defect in silicon.