Formation of electronic defects in crystalline silicon during hydrogen plasma treatment

Electronic defects in crystalline silicon induced by hydrogen plasma treatments are studied, based on in-situ photocurrent measurements and real-time spectroscopic ellipsometry. The electronic defects are generated by the plasma treatments, and annihilated partially by postannealing. The generation and annihilation of defects strongly depends on both the treatment time and the annealing temperature. A long-time plasma treatment results in the formation of the residual defects in the silicon bulk. The density of these defects is estimated to be of the order of 1013 cm−2. Interestingly, the electronic defects are formed even before a strong modification of the surface structure, i.e., the formation of a nanometer-scale disordered surface layer.