Low‐Ohmic Contacting of Laser‐Doped p‐Type Silicon Surfaces with Pure Ag Screen‐Printed and Fired Contacts

Abstract

The state‐of‐the‐art low‐ohmic electrical contacting of highly boron‐doped silicon surfaces is based on the use of screen‐printed and fired silver‐aluminum (Ag‐Al) contacts. For these contacts, metal crystallites with depths of up to a few microns are observed at the interface. For screen‐printed and fired Ag contacts on phosphorus‐doped surfaces, the observed crystallite depths are much smaller. In this work, low‐ohmic electrical contacting of local laser‐doped p‐type silicon surfaces with commercial pure Ag screen‐printing paste are demonstrated. The doping layer is based on the “pPassDop” approach, which serves as a passivation layer on the rear side of p‐type silicon solar cells. The specific contact resistances are measured down to 1 mΩ cm2 for p‐type doping densities of about 3 × 1019 cm−3 at the silicon surface and finger widths of around 55 μm. Microstructure analysis reveals the formation of numerous small Ag crystallites at the interface with penetration depths of less than 80 nm. A first implementation of the “pPassDop” approach on 6‐inch p‐type Cz‐Si bifacial solar cells using solely Ag contacts on both sides results in a peak front side energy conversion efficiency of 19.1%, measured on a black chuck with contact bars on both sides.