Abstract:
In order to investigate chemical structure change in surface passivation layers of C-silicon material under radiation of low-energy electrons, three kinds of surface passivation C-silicon material are prepared, which are mono-SiO2 layer, SiO
2/Si
3N
4 compound layers and boronsilicate glass/Si
3N
4 compound layers. They are radiated under electrons of
Emax=70 keV from electron accelerator for 6 hours in air atmosphere. Depth changes of Si, N, B before and after electron radiation are measured by secondary ion mass spectroscopy(SIMS) and argon ion etching X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS). The results show that changes at interfaces of SiO
2/Si are remarkable both in mono-SiO
2 passivation samples and Si
3N
4/SiO2 passivation samples. The possible reason is stoichiometric proportion of SiO
2 at the interface is changed to SiO
x(
x<2) under irradiation because of Si-O bond breaking. In case of Si
3N
4/SiO
2/Si passivation sample, the dissociated oxygen results from Si-O bond breaking might drift through SiO
2 to SiO
2/Si
3N
4 interface. In case of Si
3N
4/boronsilicate glass/Si sample, chemical structure changes in interfaces of boronsilicate glass/Si
3N
4 and boronsilicate glass/Si are less remarkable than those both of SiO
2/Si and Si
3N
4/SiO
2/Si samples. It indicates that the radiation damage of surface passivation layers of C-silicon material from low-energy electrons mainly takes place at interface of SiO
2/Si, which can not be noticeably improved by SiO
2/Si
3N
4 combined passivation. While using boronsilicate glass/Si
3N
4 combined passivation can help to keep chemical structure stable at interfaces between surface passivation layers of C-silicon material under radiation of low-energy electrons in air atmosphere.