TY - GEN
T1 - Advanced characterisation of black silicon surface topography with 3D PFIB-SEM
AU - Zhang, Yu
AU - Kong, Charlie
AU - Khan, Muhammad U.
AU - Fung, Tsun H.
AU - Davidsen, Rasmus S.
AU - Hansen, Ole
AU - Scardera, Giuseppe
AU - Abbott, Malcolm D.
AU - Hoex, Bram
AU - Payne, David N. R.
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Black silicon (bSi) is a promising surface texturing technology in the PV industry as it can provide superior optics and is compatible with a broad range of substrates. An accurate description of the bSi surface topography can help studying the impact of subsequent solar cell processing, assessing the uniformity of surface coatings, detecting non-ideal surface features when developing new techniques, and enabling the development of fast and scalable modelling tools. Typically, surface topography is studied by atomic force microscopy (AFM). However, this approach has limitations and can result in spurious data, such as resulting from a dull probe tip, or inadequate tip geometry when probing high aspect ratio features. Focused Ion Beam (FIB) - Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) based 3D tomography is an alternative candidate for studying surface topography and overcoming probe-related limitations. In this work, we employ modified sampling procedures to protect the microstructures. Instead of Ga+ FIB, we use the high power Xe+ Plasma FIB (PFIB) combined with SEM to iteratively cross-section the substrate and extract the true 2D profiles. We then use these profiles to reconstruct a 3D model that highly resemble to the SEM image of the specimen.
AB - Black silicon (bSi) is a promising surface texturing technology in the PV industry as it can provide superior optics and is compatible with a broad range of substrates. An accurate description of the bSi surface topography can help studying the impact of subsequent solar cell processing, assessing the uniformity of surface coatings, detecting non-ideal surface features when developing new techniques, and enabling the development of fast and scalable modelling tools. Typically, surface topography is studied by atomic force microscopy (AFM). However, this approach has limitations and can result in spurious data, such as resulting from a dull probe tip, or inadequate tip geometry when probing high aspect ratio features. Focused Ion Beam (FIB) - Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) based 3D tomography is an alternative candidate for studying surface topography and overcoming probe-related limitations. In this work, we employ modified sampling procedures to protect the microstructures. Instead of Ga+ FIB, we use the high power Xe+ Plasma FIB (PFIB) combined with SEM to iteratively cross-section the substrate and extract the true 2D profiles. We then use these profiles to reconstruct a 3D model that highly resemble to the SEM image of the specimen.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85081552410&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/PVSC40753.2019.8980830
DO - 10.1109/PVSC40753.2019.8980830
M3 - Conference proceeding contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85081552410
SN - 9781728104959
SP - 825
EP - 828
BT - 2019 IEEE 46th Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC)
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
CY - Piscataway, NJ
T2 - 46th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, PVSC 2019
Y2 - 16 June 2019 through 21 June 2019
ER -