LiBr treated porous silicon used for efficient surface passivation of crystalline silicon solar cells

•The treatment of porous silicon with LiBr decreases the reflectivity to about 7%.•The effective lifetime of minority carrier augments from 1.4μs to 18.2μs.•The treated PS layers with LiBr, leads an enhancement of the PL intensity.•Improvement of the IQE on the spectral range from 400nm to 600nm. A simple but effective passivation method of both front and rear surfaces using porous silicon (PS) has been developed. This paper investigates the effect of LiBr on the passivation of PS. The immersion of as-etched PS in dilute LiBr solution followed by an annealing in an infrared furnace, under a controlled atmosphere at different temperatures, led to the passivation of the PS layer and the improvement of the electronic properties of the crystalline silicon substrates. The influence of substrate temperature was investigated, since the processed wafers were found to be sensitive to heat, which in turn was optimized to have a gettering effect. The bromide of lithium can effectively saturate dangling bonds and hence contributed to the formation of a stable passivation film, at both front and back surfaces. Such a reaction was found to have a beneficial effect on the passivation process of the PS layer grown on both sides. The obtained results exhibited a significant improvement of the minority carrier lifetime, which is an important parameter that defines the quality of crystalline silicon substrates, and an apparent enhancement of its photoluminescence (PL). The internal quantum efficiency was investigated and found to be significantly improved. The qualitative effect of the above-mentioned procedure proved a significant enhancement of the electronic quality of the treated substrates.