Grant, N EKho, Teng ChoonFong, Kean ChernFranklin, EvanMcIntosh, KeithStocks, MatthewWan, YimaoWang, Er-ChienZin, NgweMurphy, JohnBlakers, Andrew2023-09-042023-09-040927-0248http://hdl.handle.net/1885/298177We investigate the versatility of anodically grown silicon dioxide (SiO2) films in the context of process durability and exceptional surface passivation for high efficiency (>23%) silicon solar cell architectures. We show that a room temperature anodic oxidation can achieve a thickness of ~70 nm within ~30 min, comparable to the growth rate of a thermal oxide at 1000 C. We demonstrate that anodic SiO2 films can mask against wet chemical silicon etching and high temperature phosphorus diffusions, thereby permitting a low thermal budget method to form patterned structures. We investigate the saturation current density J0 of anodic SiO2/silicon nitride stacks on phosphorus diffused and undiffused silicon and show that a J0 of <10 fA cm-2 can be achieved in both cases. Finally, to showcase the anodic SiO2 films on a device level, we employed the anodic SiO2/silicon nitride stack to passivate the rear surface of an interdigitated back contact solar cell, achieving an efficiency of 23.8%.The authors acknowledge financial supported from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA). Work done in the UK was supported by the EPSRC SuperSilicon PV project (EP/M024911/1).application/pdfen-AU© 2019 The authorshttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Anodic oxidationSiliconSilicon dioxideSolar cellSurface passivation201910.1016/j.solmat.2019.1101552022-07-24Creative Commons Attribution licence