Demonstration of Excellent Crystalline Silicon Surface Passivation (S < 1.27 cm s⁻¹) by High‐Rate DC‐Sputtered Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon

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The surface passivation quality of intrinsic hydrogenated amorphous silicon (i‐a‐Si:H) layers deposited by constant DC power‐facing target sputtering (FTS) technology is investigated. An n‐type crystalline silicon wafer passivated with a 42 nm‐thick i‐a‐Si:H shows an effective carrier lifetime of 11 ms, which corresponds to a low upper limit effective surface recombination velocity S eff of 1.27 cm s −1 . An ultrathin 5 nm‐thick i‐a‐Si:H film achieves an implied open‐circuit voltage (i V oc ) of 730 mV at a high deposition rate of 31 nm min −1 . It is found that constant DC‐FTS does not cause sputtering damage under high deposition rate conditions. This work demonstrates that i‐a‐Si:H deposited by constant DC‐FTS can achieve the same passivation quality as i‐a‐Si:H deposited by plasma‐enhanced chemical vapor deposition or catalytic chemical vapor deposition, paving the way for the fabrication of silicon heterojunction solar cells without the use of explosive and toxic gases.