Boron-diffused rear surfaces are used in place of an Al/Si alloy to form a back surface field (BSF) for single-sided buried contact (SSBC) cells. The findings are that a heavy boron diffusion over a large area can retain high bulk lifetime and have a low saturation current. SSBC solar cells that were made had the entire rear heavily boron diffused. These cells had open-circuit voltages of 650, 645, and 640 mV on 3 and 10 Omega cm p-type, and 100 Omega cm (rear junction) n-type, respectively. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.