Mechanism for the formation of Ag crystallites in the Ag thick-film contacts of crystalline Si solar cells

Hong, Kyoung Kook; Cho, Sung Bin; You, Jae Sung; Jeong, Ji Weon; Bea, Seung Mook; Huh, Joo Youl

doi:10.1016/j.solmat.2008.10.021

Cited by 153 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…of the total contact area at the silicon surface [19]. Ballif et al [20] showed that typical macroscopic contact resistivities r c < 10 mV cm 2 of screen printed contacts imply very low microscopic contact resistivities r mic < 1 Â 10 À3 mV cm 2 for the Ag crystallites.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Add‐on laser tailored selective emitter solar cells

Roder

Eisele

Grabitz³

et al. 2010

Progress in Photovoltaics

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An elegant laser tailoring add-on process for silicon solar cells, leading to selectively doped emitters increases their efficiency h by Dh ¼ 0.5% absolute. Our patented, scanned laser doping add-on process locally increases the doping under the front side metallization, thus allowing for shallow doping and less Auger recombination between the contacts. The selective laser add-on process modifies the emitter profile from a shallow error-function type to Gaussian type and enables excellent contact formation by screen printing, normally difficult to achieve for shallow diffused emitters. The significantly deeper doping profile of the laser irradiated samples widens the process window for the firing of screen printed contacts and avoids metal spiking through the pn-junction.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Add‐on laser tailored selective emitter solar cells

Roder

Eisele

Grabitz³

et al. 2010

Progress in Photovoltaics

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“…Our EDX reveals no Ag crystallites present at the overfired glass/Si interface, which is different from previous reports of appearance of Ag particles. [9][10][11][12] The following theory explains why no Ag particles (only Pb) exist in the interface in the overfired paste PB/Si. Figure 6 (left) illustrates a growth mechanism of Ag crystallites at the glass/Si interface under the normal paste firing.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigation of the effect of forming gas annealing on front silver electrodes of c‐Si solar cells

Ren

Yang

Bao³

et al. 2012

Surface & Interface Analysis

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a Forming gas annealing (FGA) is an effective process to repair low efficiency crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells with overfired screen-printed paste electrodes. An experimental study was performed to investigate the effect and mechanism of FGA treatment on front silver electrodes of c-Si cells. To facilitate the FGA mechanistic study, special simulation samples were prepared to magnify the FGA effects on glass frit and overfired electrodes. The micro-morphology (from cross-sectional X-SEM) and elemental composition (from energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy) data revealed few Ag crystallites in the paste/Si interface because of the thick glass layer from the paste overfiring. The FGA treatment induced phase crystallization (from X-ray diffraction) in the paste and increased the glass wettability on both Si and Ag substrates, thus resulting in a thinner glass layer, which expedited the precipitation of more pyramidal Ag crystallites at the Ag/Si interface. The wetting angle data of glass samples measured before and after FGA confirmed the mechanism of FGA and concluded that the improvement of glass wettability benefited to reduce the glass layer thickness. As a result, more Ag crystallites diffused toward and precipitated at the Si interface contributing to a lower contact resistance between the paste electrode and the Si matrix and thus improved electrical properties for overfired c-Si cells.

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“…4(c) and (d) were found to be silver content. According to the former studies [12,19], the silver crystallites, formed due to the chemical reaction between the SiN x and silver paste, were supposed to have relation with the current transport. In light of the results above and the SiN x firing-through process in the literature [19], a simple model of the contact formation can be proposed in the multi-crystalline silicon solar cells.…”

Section: Contact-resistance Between the Finger And The Emittermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most of these results are based on mono-crystalline silicon, while the silver crystallites, with shape of inverted pyramid and penetrating into the silicon, are believed to be metal-semiconductor ohmic contact to the emitter [10]. Although the contacts between the silver finger and the silicon emitter have been investigated widely, it is still difficult to give a completely clear picture of the formation of the Ag/Si contact due to: (a) the unclear current transport mechanism [11], (b) the formation mechanism of the silver crystallites [12], especially during the complexities of the latest commercial silver paste, (c) the textured surface topography and (d) the uncertainty of crystal orientation [13] in multi-crystalline silicon are taken into account. Based on the experimental and theoretical studies, here presents a detailed investigation on the contacts in the multi-crystalline silicon solar cells.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Study on the front contact mechanism of screen-printed multi-crystalline silicon solar cells

Wang

et al. 2015

Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells

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Mechanism for the formation of Ag crystallites in the Ag thick-film contacts of crystalline Si solar cells

Cited by 153 publications

References 9 publications

Add‐on laser tailored selective emitter solar cells

Add‐on laser tailored selective emitter solar cells

Investigation of the effect of forming gas annealing on front silver electrodes of c‐Si solar cells

Study on the front contact mechanism of screen-printed multi-crystalline silicon solar cells

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