Characterization of PECVD Silicon Nitride Passivation with Photoluminescence Imaging

In this paper, we present studies of plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposited silicon nitride in which photoluminescence imaging was used to characterize our deposition process. A showcase of different processing issues such as equipment design, processing conditions, and manual handling is presented. We also demonstrate how photoluminescence imaging can be particularly useful for process monitoring, diagnoses, and development. An increase in implied Voc of up to 25 mV was achieved through the use of PL imaging as a diagnostic tool.