I had severe problems with pinholes in a stainless/Al2O3/metal system
where the oxide was reactively sputtered to a thickness larger than 3 microns.
The reason had been that most of the processing was done in a non clean
environment (much the opposite actually).
By sputter-etching the polished stainless substrate I have increased
my yield a great lot. (However, since I also use smaller geometries
than before, it is difficult to be quantitative as to how much of the
improvement is due to sputter-cleaning).
The caveat is that the particles I was concerned with were mostly
-if not exclusively - 'foreign' particles, which is not your case as
you imply.
Tassos Golnas
At 10:09 AM +0100 1999.07.06, Nuno Guimaraes wrote:
>I have had problems with pinholes in solar cells. My colleagues use the
>PECVD technical to created p-i-n layer,when I metallized to create
>Al/nip/ITO glass solar cell, I have short-circuit between the metal and the
>ITO, due the particles formed during the growth of each amorphous silicon
>layer.
>
>Is there a way to completely eliminate pinholes, either when the layers of
>amorphous silicon are created or after the growth using lithography process?
>
>Regards
>
>Nuno Guimarães
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