Screen-printed solar cells with mesh-structured emitters

Mesh-structured emitter solar cells (MESC) with evaporated contacts have shown e fficiencies up to 22.7 %. For further simplification of the MESC cell the photol ithographically defined front contacts had been re-placed by screen-printed cont acts which were fired in a RTP (Rapid Thermal Processing) furnace. Efficiencies up to 13 % (with AR-coating, 4 cm²) had been achieved with fill factors around 6 6 %. For optimization of the RTP parame-ters cells with an homogeneous emitter h ad been screen-printed and processed at different RTP temperatures and peak-time s resulting in fill factors up to 80.5 %. This is the highest value ever reporte d for screen-printed front metallization followed by RTP firing.