This project looks at building on a study done by Bullock et al¹ where a cleaned silicon surface is passivated using an anhydrous superacid solution to give remarkably high carrier lifetimes, with the aim to boost solar cell efficiencies.

The aims:

• Further understand the chemical composition of the surface passivation layer
• To study the degradation of the passivation under varying post passivation conditions
• To optimise the current passivation process and evaluate the dependence of the method on the solvent used

1) Bullock, J.; Kiriya, D.; Grant,N.; Azcatl, A.; Hettick, M.; Kho, T.; Phang, P.; Sio, H. C.; Yan, D.; Macdonald, D.; Quevedo-Lopez, M. A.; Wallace, R. M.; Cuevas, A.; Javey, A.Superacid Passivation of Crystalline Silicon Surfaces. ACS Appl. Mater.Interfaces 2016, 8 (36), 24205–24211.

Supervisors: Dr J. D. Murphy, Dr N. E. Grant

School of Engineering

University of Warwick

CV4 7AL