Laser chemical metal deposition for silicon solar cell metallization

This work describes the development of the Laser Chemical Metal Deposition (LCMD) process for silicon solar cell metallisation. The LCMD process can be considered as an advanced and promising method for solar cell metallisation. With LCMD a metal seed layer is created on the surface of a silicon wafer. Subsequently, the seed layer is thickened by a plating process. It is a low temperature metallisation scheme that does not need any additional masking processes. In this work different nickel solutions and laser configurations were analyzed. Variations of laser power, repetition number and scan speed were performed and the resulting contacts were characterized. With the optimized parameters, silicon solar cells with efficiencies up to 17.9 % have been processed and demonstrate the great potential of LCMD.