New processes for homojunction silicon solar cells doping: From beam line to plasma immersion ion implantation

The doping of n-type silicon solar cells was investigated using two ion implantation techniques: beam line and plasma immersion. Initially, we evaluated the benefits of beamline ion implantation in replacement of diffusion anneal doping process. Two different annealing routines were studied. The first one using a single annealing to activate both B implanted emitter and P implanted BSF, while the second one used two different annealing to separately activate each dopant. Good yield was reached with a record cell of 20.33% efficiency. Secondly, we investigated the doping by plasma immersion ion implantation where the final objective was the fabrication of a solar cell fully doped by plasma. BF3 and B2H6 were compared as precursor gases for the boron emitter doping, while PH3 was used for the BSF doping. Hybrid cells were fabricated using both implantation techniques and a maximum efficiency of 19.8% was obtained. First cells fully doped by plasma shown promising results with a yield of 18.8%.