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Black silicon plasma technology begins to be integrated into the process flow of silicon solar cells. However, most of the current technology is used at cryogenic or very low substrate temperatures. Here, the authors investigate the temperature-dependent properties of black silicon prepared by two different plasma etching techniques for black silicon, a pure capacitively coupled process (CCP), and an inductively and capacitively coupled process (ICP+CCP). It turns out that the ICP+CCP process at room-temperature yields black silicon samples with 93% absorption and minority carrier lifetime above 1 ms. The authors show that these optoelectronic properties are comparable to samples obtained at low temperatures

The influence of the SiOxFy selfmasking process on the formation of black-Silicon (b-Si) textures by maskless SF6/O2 plasma etching is of great interest with regard to the optimization of the texturing process for highly antireflective silicon. For that reason, the elemental composition of plasma textured silicon surfaces is analyzed by transmission electron microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The chemical composition of a fluorine containing oxide layer on top of the surface was confirmed and determined quantitatively. A strongly reduced F content was found after ambient air exposure. A qualitative model of the chemical and physical processes caused by maskless plasma texturing was developed to explain the observed experimental results. The decrease in the F content is assumed to be caused by hydrolysis of F by air moisture, resulting in a successive desorption of HF and transformation of SiOxFy to silicon oxide.