Boron Oxygen Pair Effect in <I>p</I>+ Emitter and Nanosized Boron Rich Layer by Fold Coordination Analysis for Crystalline Silicon Solar Cell Applications

N-type substrates possess better material characteristics than p-type substrates for high efficiency mass producible Si solar cells with HIT, IBC structures. The major drawbacks of these structures are a complicated fabrication process and an expensive unit cost. In this paper, the boron emitter doping profile of a nanosized boron rich layer (BRL), for which the boron and oxygen concentrations are correlated, is optimized to fabricate high efficiency solar cells on an n-type substrate. Boron doping was carried out using a BBr3 furnace with varying oxygen gas ratios and the surface was treated with acid etching. The effect of the oxygen on the nanosized BRL was analyzed using both FTIR spectroscopy and XPS, where by conductivity and the Si-B bond were observed for the three-fold and four-fold coordinated borons, respectively. The results showed that the oxygen quantities in the boron doped emitter and the nanosized BRL affected the characteristics of the solar cell. Regarding the solar cells that were fabricated using the boron emitter and shallow emitter (90 ohm/sq) processes, the open-circuit voltage increased by 54 mV and the short circuit current (J(sc)) increased by 3.7 mA/cm2. The J(sc) increase was due to an increased quantum efficiency in the short wavelength range. The shallow emitter etch back process minimized the boron-oxygen defects in the doping profile.