Economic Evaluation of Two-Step Metallization Processes for Silicon Solar Cells

Synthesis of a Lead- and Particle-free Metal-organic Ink for Front Side Metallization of Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells

“…Simultaneously however, both manufacturing and production costs have to decrease. Rising silver prices affect the production costs because of the silver required for metallization: Solely the front side metallization accounts for about 20 % of standard cell production costs [1]. However, the front-side metallization is also vulnerable to many losses, including resistivity at the metal/semiconductor interface, line resistivity of fingers, and losses due to optical shading [2].…”

“…Left: Comparing DSC curves of SiNx powder with bismuth-neo solution (solid green[1]), zinc-neo solution (dotted purple[2]), Ag-neo powder (dotted blue[3]), and our26 wt% metal content ink (solid red[4]). Right: EDX image of an etched pyramid by a low-concentration ink cured at 500 °C for 5 min.…”

Micro Cold Spray printed top metallization layer for solar cells

“…This technique has shown a 0.4% abs increase in cell efficiency as compared to screen printed traces. [6] We have shown with our CAB-DW print system, which has an improved nozzle design to the Aerosol Jet, traces with widths down to 5 µm. [2] In that work we compiled a model from literature which calculates the optimum trace width for a given set of material, and cell parameters.…”

Simulations Based on the Cooptimization Procedure for Plated Contacts With a NiSi Interface

“…Then, a conductive layer is plated to increase the finger thickness and conductivity. Silver could be chosen, but the final goal is to introduce copper, which is more cost-effective [10], [11]. In this case, three metal layers (Ni/Cu/Sn or Ni/Cu/Ag) are used as copper oxidation must be prevented by a capping layer.…”

“…Typically, the height of printed lines is in the range of 10-20 μm with a width of 60-100 μm [3]. Although the screen printing process is still considered as the main technology for the coming years [4], [5], more advanced solutions used in the laboratory have become available on an industrial scale [6]- [9] to improve efficiency at lower cost [10], [11].…”