The profitability of the whole photovoltaic system can be effectively increased by the use of advanced silicon solar cells with a higher conversion efficiency potential and new technologies are needed to keep the fabrication effort low. Ion implantation allows for single side and even patterned doping of silicon wafers, so this technique could help to simplify the process chain of complex high-efficiency silicon solar cells. In this thesis, the suitability of ion implantation for the fabrication of modern solar cells was investigated. The implantation of mass-separated boron or phosphorus ions and subsequent furnace annealing was used to study the charge carrier recombination due to implantation defects and obtain doping profiles for an evaluation at the device level. Furthermore, novel process sequences combining ion implantation and furnace diffusion for the simplified doping of back-junction back-contact cells were developed and evaluated with respect to the influence of a reverse breakdown and a weak front-side doping on the solar cell performance.

Within this work electrochemical processes for manufacturing of novel silicon solar cells are investigated. Direct plating of Ni and Al on n- and p-silicon is demonstrated by making use of solar cell characteristics. Homogenous Ni/Cu stacks are realized for bifacial and back contact solar cells, forming an excellent mechanical and electrical contact to silicon. For metallization of HIT solar cells, the plating behavior on ITO layers is studied. Additionally, plating processes on evaporated Al layers are developed and applied to back contact solar cells. By means of process optimization the plated metal stack on Al features sufficient adhesion and increases the lateral conductivity of the metal grid resulting in increased solar cell efficiency. An advanced metallization route for back contact solar cells which purposefully utilizes the different characteristics of the deposited metals (Al, Ni, Cu) is developed. The resulting metal stacks are characterized in detail using SEM, EDX and AES methods. Besides plating processes, local oxidizing processes for Al are established and combined with printing technologies to realize the metal contact separation for back contact solar cells.

The ability to provide highly accurate performance evaluations of photovoltaic devices has never been more important given the recent, and anticipated, progress in photovoltaics. The lowest possible measurement uncertainties are required for reliably assessing technological advances and reducing investment uncertainty. As the further reduction of these uncertainties within conventional solar cell measurements is often hindered by the measurement setups themselves, innovative approaches in the development of new measurement facilities are vital. This thesis addresses such demand by applying ultrashort laser pulses for highly accurate solar cell characterization. Based on a detailed investigation of pulse-solar cell interaction, a setup for spectral responsivity measurements is developed. This cutting-edge measurement setup substantially outperforms current state-of-the-art facilities in terms of measurement accuracy. Furthermore, a novel measurement approach is presented that takes advantage of spectrally shaped supercontinuum radiation. Imitating standard solar spectra with the shaped supercontinuum radiation promises a quicker and more accurate measurement of the solar cell's short circuit current than is presently possible using conventional methods.