Substrate heating and emitter dopant effects in laser-annealed solar cells

This letter provides the first experimental evidence that substrate heating during pulsed-laser annealing (PLA) of ion-implanted silicon can significantly improve the electrical properties of the laser recrystalized region due to the reduction of the regrowth velocity. It is also shown that by using the optimum PLA condition, the open-circuit voltage VOC and the fill factor of ion-implanted, laser-annealed solar cells are improved by increasing the emitter dopant concentrations, whereas the short-circuit current JSC remains fairly constant, results which are in qualitative agreement with theoretical predictions.