Dual screen printing featuring novel framed busbar screen layout and non-contacting Ag busbar paste

Screen printing has been the dominant technology for the metallization of silicon solar cells up to date. Many efforts have been made to further optimize the process focusing on economical profitability and electrical performance. The aim of this work is to improve the cell performance while reducing the costly consumption of Ag paste at the same time. A dual printing approach is presented for the font side metallization of Si solar cells. A new non-contacting paste with lower Ag content is introduced for the busbars along with a novel screen layout featuring framed busbars. The paste and layout are compared to regular single and dual printing of a standard front side paste. The utilization of a low Ag containing and non-contacting busbar paste yields Ag savings of 15%. Simultaneously, the cell efficiency is improved by 0.2%abs. compared to standard single printing.