New approach to obtain boron selective emitters [for Si solar cells]

Selective emitters, used in high efficiency solar cells, need a series of oxidations and photolithographic steps that render the process more expensive. In this paper, a new way to make selective emitters using boron is presented. The main feature of this approach is to save oxide growths and photolithographic processes and it is based on the property of boron doped silicon surfaces to be resistant to anisotropic etchings like the one performed during the texturization. Using this characteristic of boron emitter surfaces, one can obtain a highly doped emitter under metal grid and simultaneously a shield to avoid texture on these surfaces. First cells were processed and short wavelength response of p/sup +/nn/sup +/ solar cells was enhanced by using lightly doped boron emitters in the uncovered area.