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2007
Conference Paper
Titel
Further progress in metal aerosol jet printing for front side metallization of silicon solar cells
Abstract
Front side contacts on silicon solar cells were printed with a metal aerosol jet system using highly solid loaded silver inks exceeding 70 wt%. The printed, fired and plated fingers covers only 70% of the area of a screen-printed contact; at the same time the line conductivity is improved due to followed light induced plating step. The requirements for an aerosol ink were determined and an ink was formulated. The ink was successively improved to extend the machine uptime, to decrease the printed line width and to increase the printing speed. Additionally a commercially available screen print paste was modified for aerosol printing. Line widths below 50 ?m using a diluted screen print ink and line width below 20 ?m and machine uptimes of more than 10 hours are possible using a new ink formulation. The minimum amount of silver ink which is necessary to process a front side contact, electrically and mechanically, was determined. The contacts were analyzed, and solar cells were processed on monocrystalline and multicrystalline material. The new formulated aerosol ink was tested on 15.6 cm x 15.6 cm mc Si solar cells, achieving efficiencies up to 16.5%. Using a diluted commercially available screen print paste 12.5 cm x 12.5 cm Cz Si cells with an aluminum back surface field were processed, achieving energy conversion efficiencies up to 18.3% .