In one embodiment, a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device includes forming a semiconductor layer including a plurality of metal atoms on a substrate, and forming a first layer including a plurality of silicon atoms and a plurality of nitrogen atoms on the semiconductor layer. The method further includes transferring at least some of the metal atoms in the semiconductor layer into the first layer. and removing the first layer after transferring the at least some of the metal atoms in the semiconductor layer into the first layer. Furthermore, a ratio of a number of the nitrogen atoms relative to a number of the silicon atoms and the nitrogen atoms in the first layer is smaller than 4/7.

Performed is a hydrogen anneal of heating a semiconductor wafer on which a thin film containing a dopant and carbon is formed to an anneal temperature in an atmosphere containing hydrogen. Subsequently, a hydrogen atmosphere in a chamber is replaced with an oxygen atmosphere, and the semiconductor wafer is preheated to a preheating temperature in the oxygen atmosphere. Performed then is a flash heating treatment of heating a surface of the semiconductor wafer to a peak temperature for less than one second. The semiconductor wafer is heated in the oxygen atmosphere, thus activation of dopant and binding of carbon in the thin film and oxygen in the atmosphere are promoted, and carbon is exhausted from the thin film to prevent hardening of the thin film. As a result, the thin film containing carbon can be easily peeled from the semiconductor wafer.

An apparatus including a circuit structure including a device stratum including a plurality of devices including a first side and an opposite second side; and a metal interconnect coupled to at least one of the plurality of devices from the second side of the device stratum. A method including forming a transistor device including a channel between a source region and a drain region and a gate electrode on the channel defining a first side of the device; and forming an interconnect to one of the source region and the drain region from a second side of the device.

Embodiments of the invention are directed to a method of forming a semiconductor device. A non-limiting example of the method includes forming a channel fin over a substrate and forming a top spacer region around a top portion of the channel fin, wherein the top spacer region includes a dopant. A dopant drive-in process is applied, wherein the dopant drive-in process is configured to drive the dopant from the top spacer region into the top portion of the channel fin to create a doped top portion of the channel fin and a top junction between the doped top portion of the channel fin and a main body portion of the channel fin.

The invention provides a bifacial photovoltaic cell comprising: a semiconductor substrate, the substrate comprising an n+ layer on a first surface, and a p+ layer on a second surface. The n+ layer comprises an n-dopant and the p+ layer comprises a p-dopant. The cell further comprises a passivating and/or antireflective coating on the doped first and second surfaces. The cell is characterized in that the second surface of the semiconductor substrate has an area substantially devoid of the p-dopant on an edge of the second surface having a width in the range of 0.1-0.5 mm; wherein the area is formed by etching the semiconductor substrate.

A device structure for a bipolar junction transistor includes a base layer made of a semiconductor material. An emitter is disposed on a first portion of the base layer. A dopant-containing layer is disposed on a second portion of the base layer. A hardmask is disposed on the base layer. The hardmask includes a window aligned with the second portion of the base layer. Deposits of the dopant-containing layer are limited to exposed surfaces of: the first portion that is disposed on a top surface of the base layer inside of the window.

In a method for forming a barrier layer, the barrier layer is formed on a base layer having a three-dimensional structure before a dopant-containing layer is formed on the base layer. At this time, at least one of a film thickness, a film quality, and a film type of the barrier layer is controlled in a height direction of the three-dimensional structure by using an atomic layer deposition (ALD) process.

A method of producing a bifacial photovoltaic cell is disclosed herein, the method comprising: a) forming an n-dopant-containing layer on a first surface of a semiconductor substrate; b) forming a boron-containing layer on a second surface of the substrate by sputtering boron and/or by boron ion implantation; and c) effecting diffusion of the n-dopant and boron into the substrate, to dope the first surface with the n-dopant and the second surface with the boron. Further disclosed herein are bifacial photovoltaic cells, as well as photovoltaic modules, power plants and electric devices comprising said photovoltaic cells, comprising a semiconductor substrate, an n.sup.+ layer on a first surface thereof and a boron-containing p.sup.+ layer on a second surface thereof, wherein a variability of boron concentration in the p.sup.+ layer is no more than 5%.

A method for forming a device structure provides for forming a fin of a semiconductor material. A first contact is formed on the fin. A second contact is formed on the fin and spaced along a length of the fin from the first contact. A self-aligned gate electrode is formed on the fin that is positioned along the length of the fin between the first contact and the second contact.

Structures and methods of forming self-aligned unsymmetric gate (SAUG) FinFET are provided. The SAUG FinFET structure has two different gate structures on opposite sides of each fin: a programming gate structure and a switching gate structure. The SAUG FinFET may be used as non-volatile memory (NVM) storage element that may be electrically programmed by trapping charges in the charge trapping dielectric (e.g., Si.sub.3N.sub.4) with appropriate bias on the control gate of the programming gate structure. The stored data may be sensed by sensing the channel current through the SAUG FinFET in response to a bias on the switching gate of the switching gate structure.