Excimer laser annealing to fabricate low cost solar cells

The objective is to show whether or not pulsed excimer laser annealing (PELA) of ion-implanted junctions is a cost effective replacement for diffused junctions in fabricating crystalline silicon solar cells. The preliminary economic analysis completed shows that the use of PELA to fabricate both the front junction and back surface field (BSF) would cost approximately 35 cents per peak watt (Wp), compared to a cost of 15 cents/Wp for diffusion, aluminum BSF and an extra cleaning step in the baseline process. The cost advantage of the PELA process depends on improving the average cell efficiency from 14% to 16%, which would lower the overall cost of the module by about 15 cents/Wp. An optimized PELA process compatible with commercial production is to be developed, and increased cell efficiency with sufficient product for adequate statistical analysis demonstrated. An excimer laser annealing station was set-up and made operational. The first experiment used 248 nm radiation to anneal phosphorus implants in polished and texture-etched silicon.