19.3% Efficiency on P-Type Silicon Solar Cells by Pulsion® Plasma-Immersion Implantation

IBS and INES have recently demonstrated the strong relevance of the plasma-immersion ion implantation (PIII) technique to realise high efficiency silicon solar cells. The fabrication process, developed on 239 cm2 p-type Cz-Si wafers, gives performances similar to those of classical ion beam implantation, with an efficiency improvement of 0.7% absolute with respect to classical POCl3-based emitters. Repeatability and robustness of the developed process have been validated. We give some information describing the different steps to achieve the homogeneous n-emitters by pulsed-PIII and present characterisation results showing which cell parameters are better than that of standard cells. Both high throughput and low cost of the immersion-plasma equipment would seriously challenge technologies developed by other companies in the ion-implantation field devoted to the PV market. Investigations to realise BSF, advanced emitters or IBC cells by this technique are now included in the roadmap.