The effect of doping with nickel on the parameters of silicon photocells, in which the p – n junction was created by impurities of III (B, Ga) and V (P, Sb) groups, has been studied. It is shown that the positive effect of nickel on the photocell efficiency does not depend on the type of initial silicon and on the nature of impurities used to obtain the p – n junction, but is mainly determined by the gettering properties of the near-surface nickel-enriched layer