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oai:figshare.com:article/33911998 2026-09-17T20:49:53Z portal_1197 item_type_3 month_year_09_2026

Data for Hydrogen in aluminium oxide films grown for silicon surface passivation by plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition Sophie L. Pain (11896239) Luke Wilkins (9604824) Matthew K. Sharpe (13904756) Callum D. McAleese (13904750) Kelsey J. Hall (25058800) John D. Murphy (6877151) Nicholas E. Grant (6877136) Atomic layer deposition Plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition Hydrogen Silicones Compound semiconductors -- Surfaces Migrated from ePrints Aluminium oxide (Al2O3) films grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD) are widely used in surface passivation, including for silicon-based solar cells. Post-deposition annealing is used to tune interfacial properties by modifying field-effect and chemical passivation. We have used time-of-flight elastic recoil detection analysis (ToF-ERDA) to depth-profile hydrogen concentrations in silicon coated with Al2O3 grown by plasma-enhanced ALD at 200 °C, with effective carrier lifetimes in the same sample set monitored by photoconductance decay measurements. Effective lifetime — which strongly relates to surface passivation — peaks with post-deposition annealing at 450–500 °C. Corona charging experiments demonstrate that chemical passivation improves with annealing from 400 to 550 °C, worsening with annealing ≥600 °C. ToF-ERDA reveals an average hydrogen concentration of ∼1.2 at.% for films as-deposited and annealed ≤450–500 °C. As passivation starts to reduce upon annealing >550 °C, the film’s average hydrogen concentration reduces to ∼0.5 at.%, with no detectable increase in hydrogen in the silicon. Hydrogen out-diffusion should be a consideration in understanding reduced passivation at higher annealing temperatures. If the Al2O3 film is considered as two regions — near-surface and near-interface — then below 500 °C, hydrogen concentrations are greater near-surface than near-interface, a trend reversed when annealing >550 °C.<br><br>The dataset (a single file in XLSX format) contains the data behind the figures in the paper. Captions to the figures are given in the paper. Abbreviations, variables and methods used are defined in the paper. 2026-09-17T20:49:53Z Dataset Dataset 10.82444/warw.33911998.v1 https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/Data_for_Hydrogen_in_aluminium_oxide_films_grown_for_silicon_surface_passivation_by_plasma-enhanced_atomic_layer_deposition/33911998 CC BY 4.0