Influence of silver paste rheology and screen parameters on the front side metallization of silicon solar cell

Thibert, S.; Jourdan, J.; Bechevet, B.; Chaussy, Didier; Reverdy-Bruas, Nadège; Beneventi, Davide

doi:10.1016/j.mssp.2014.08.023

Cited by 45 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 22 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…A three-interval shear test as suggested in [16] and later used in [17,21,24,30] was performed to characterize the structural recovery after large shear deformation. Here, the degree of recovery is calculated as the ratio of G' fin obtained as the limiting G' value in Section III and G' ini determined in Section I.…”

Section: Rheological Properties Of Model Vehicles and Model Silver Pamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From flooding of the screen to snap-off of the screen from the wafer and drying of the printed features, the paste is exposed to complex loads, including a broad range of shear rates and stresses. In addition, resistance to elongational deformation during snap-off, structural recovery after being squeezed through the screen openings, and slip at the boundaries of these openings, also have to be considered [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. Rheological characterization of up-to-date commercial silver pastes for front-side metallization is a particular challenge.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, a direct comparison to printed electrode properties was not made. In [21], four commercial silver pastes characterized as suggested in [16] were used to develop screen design strategies for an optimized front-side metallization of solar cells. A thick emulsion over mesh (EOM) layer enabled printing of fingers with a high aspect ratio, whereas a thin EOM layer limited paste spreading.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A higher slip velocity resulted in a higher silver laydown and a higher aspect ratio of the printed lines, as well as in a narrower intersection of busbar and fingers. The gain of scientific insight in such studies trying to correlate paste rheology and printing performance is limited when pastes with different compositions, not only with respect to rheology but also in terms of their substrate wetting properties, are investigated [21,23].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Rheology and Screen-Printing Performance of Model Silver Pastes for Metallization of Si-Solar Cells

2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Further strong growth of solar energy conversion based on PV (photovoltaic) technology requires constant improvement to increase solar cell efficiency. The challenge in front-side metallization of Si-solar cells is to print uniform fine lines with a high aspect ratio to achieve higher efficiencies simultaneously with a reduced consumption of raw materials. An in-depth understanding of the relationship between paste composition, rheology and screen-printed line morphology is essential. Three model pastes with similar silver content and corresponding vehicles differing in their thixotropic agent content were investigated. Rheological properties (yield stress, viscosity, wall slip velocity, structural recovery, and fracture strain) were determined using steady and oscillatory shear, as well as elongational flow rheometry. Pastes were screen-printed at various speeds through a layout screen including line widths between 20 and 55 µm. Dried fingers were analyzed with respect to line width, aspect ratio (AR) and cross-sectional area. Our investigations reveal that minor changes of thixotropic agent result in substantial variations of the paste’s flow properties. However, this only weakly affects the line morphology. Irrespective of printing speed or finger opening, AR is slightly increasing; i.e., the screen-printing process is robust against changes in paste rheology.

show abstract

Section: Rheological Properties Of Model Vehicles and Model Silver Pamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Rheology and Screen-Printing Performance of Model Silver Pastes for Metallization of Si-Solar Cells

2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Therefore, most commercial cells are metalized using screen printing of silver pastes, mainly because of the convenient implementation of the firing-through process. Typically, the height of printed lines is in the range of 10-20 μm with a width of 60-100 μm [3]. Although the screen printing process is still considered as the main technology for the coming years [4], [5], more advanced solutions used in the laboratory have become available on an industrial scale [6]- [9] to improve efficiency at lower cost [10], [11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulations Based on the Cooptimization Procedure for Plated Contacts With a NiSi Interface

Thibert¹,

Jourdan

Bechevet³

et al. 2015

IEEE J. Photovoltaics

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A cooptimization procedure has been developed for industrial solar cells metalized using a nickel seed layer thickened by a plated silver layer. A theoretical contact resistivity model for NiSi nickel silicide contacts was first computed and inserted into classical power loss equations. Optical, resistive, and recombination losses were then simulated with a standard set of parameters used in production. This procedure allows the generation of efficiency and silver consumption contour plots for homogeneous and selective emitters. For both, general guidelines are given for the optimization of the doping profile, the finger spacing, and the finger thickness.

show abstract

Paste Development for an Optimized Filament Stretching Effect during Parallel Dispensing on Transparent Conductive Oxide Layers for Solar Cell Metallization

Gensowski,

Palme,

Langhof

et al. 2023

Adv Eng Mater

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The availability of silver as an electrically conductive filler material in printing pastes for solar cell metallization is becoming a more crucial issue for multiterawatt‐scale production due to its global constraints. Therefore, the silver consumption for solar cell production needs to be reduced drastically by substituting silver with alternative conductive filler materials or utilizing process‐specific phenomena. The phenomenon of filament stretching during microextrusion allows significantly lower paste laydowns. The magnitude of filament stretching is paste‐dependent and therefore further knowledge of the pastes’ impact to the filament stretching is required. This study presents nine low‐temperature curing pastes differing in the particle system and binder resin. The rheological and thermal behavior of these suspensions are investigated and printing tests onto silicon heterojunction (SHJ) precursors are carried out. Additionally, scanning electron microscopy (SEM)‐based microstructure analyses of printed electrodes are performed. Based on these experimental results, the impact of paste compositions regarding the paste behavior during microextrusion and the SHJ solar cell performances are analyzed. The developed paste formulations exhibit a strong filament stretching, leading to a reduced silver laydown of down to ΔmAg = −60%rel. and an absolute efficiency gain of up to Δη = +0.75%abs. due to less shading losses.

show abstract

Influence of silver paste rheology and screen parameters on the front side metallization of silicon solar cell

Cited by 45 publications

References 22 publications

Rheology and Screen-Printing Performance of Model Silver Pastes for Metallization of Si-Solar Cells

Rheology and Screen-Printing Performance of Model Silver Pastes for Metallization of Si-Solar Cells

Simulations Based on the Cooptimization Procedure for Plated Contacts With a NiSi Interface

Paste Development for an Optimized Filament Stretching Effect during Parallel Dispensing on Transparent Conductive Oxide Layers for Solar Cell Metallization

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About