Establishing the "native oxide barrier layer for selective electroplated" metallization for bifacial silicon heterojunction solar cells

The metallization of silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells by selective Cu electroplating onto a structured PVD Cu-Al seed and mask layer stack is established by using the native oxide of the Al as insulating barrier. The NOBLE metallization (native oxide barrier layer for selective electroplating) allows reaching a first promising efficiency of 20.0% on full area SHJ solar cell with low contact resistivity on ITO. The approach features several advantages: low temperature processing, high metal conductivity of plated copper, no organic making and low material costs (almost Ag-free).