Electrical properties of the rear contact structure of MWT silicon solar cells
Abstract
In certain metal wrap through (MWT) solar cell structures, the external rear contact - that is connected to the front grid by the via contacts - directly overlaps the silicon base with opposite polarity. Since no intermediate p-n-junction is present in-between, leakage currents under forward bias may occur. Such leakage currents directly affect the conversion efficiency of the cell. This work investigates the electrical contact properties of five screen printing via pastes to p-type and n-type Czochralski-grown silicon with different surface topographies and different intermediate dielectric insulation layer systems. Dark current-voltage (IV) measurements on test structures reveal a significant impact of the via paste on the IV characteristics. In addition, especially for n-type silicon, reverse bias load leads to significantly increased forward leakage currents. Stability tests performed with p-type MWT solar cells (either with aluminum back surface field or passivated rear surface) reveal no significant fill factor drops when appropriate via pastes are used.
