Modelling carrier recombination in highly phosphorus-doped industrial emitters

One important parameter for modelling emitter recombination is the surface recombination velocity (SRV), which strongly depends on the surface doping concentration and the applied surface passivation. However, for highly phosphorus-doped surfaces with concentrations in excess of 2×1020 cm-3, where not all of the dopant is electrically activated, data is hardly available in the literature. Moreover, the bulk carrier lifetime in such supersaturated near surface regions is unknown. We use an analytical model to describe silicon-nitride-passivated phosphorus-diffused emitters. The model shows excellent agreement with a recently presented numerical solver, deviating less than 1%. In both cases we apply a Fermi-Dirac statistics correction and account for band gap narrowing to calculate the intrinsic carrier density. Our results from measurements of the emitter dark saturation current density indicate that either the SRV or the local carrier lifetime in the supersaturated region are strongly affected by the doping concentration, even if it exceeds the dopant activation limit by far. Assuming only Auger recombination in the supersaturated region, we derive an upper limit for the SRV that depends on the chemical phosphorus surface concentration.