The Nature of Screen Printed Front Side Silver Contacts - Results of the Project MikroSol

Hoenig, René; Duerrschnabel, Michael; Mierlo, Willem van; Aabdin, Zainul; Bernhard, Joerg; Biskupek, Johannes; Eibl, O.; Kaiser, Ute; Wilde, Juergen; Clement, Florian; Biro, Daniel

doi:10.1016/j.egypro.2013.11.085

Cited by 32 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…For screen-printed and fired front silver contacts commonly applied for p-type silicon solar cells, the actual mechanisms of contact formation to the highly doped n-type emitter and of current transport are still being discussed [16][17][18]. Tunneling through a thin dielectric layer is assumed to be one of the major current transport mechanisms [14,16,19,20] leading to ohmic contact properties [21].…”

Section: Screen-printed Silver-insulator-semiconductor Contactsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electrical properties of the rear contact structure of MWT silicon solar cells

Lohmüller

Thanasa

Thaidigsmann

et al. 2015

Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells

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Section: Screen-printed Silver-insulator-semiconductor Contactsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electrical properties of the rear contact structure of MWT silicon solar cells

Lohmüller

Thanasa

Thaidigsmann

et al. 2015

Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells

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“…Observed and reported in previous studies on current flow paths are: (1) direct contact between emitter and Ag-bulk via Ag crystallites or partially covered by a thin (up to a few nanometers) glass layer [17]- [20], and (2) contact through interfacial glass layer richly decorated with nano-Ag colloids [3], [19], [21]. A sample after standard co-firing using the optimal peak temperature of 840…”

Section: Scanning Electron Microscopy After Standard and Extended mentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of Extended Contact Cofiring on Multicrystalline Silicon Solar Cell Parameters

Peral

Dastgheib-Shirazi

Fano

et al. 2017

IEEE J. Photovoltaics

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“…A similar microstructure of thin interfacial glass with nano-Ag colloids of FS contact for p-type c-Si solar cells was previously identified and reported. [16][17][18][22][23][24]28,29 It should be noted that the large proportion of thick interfacial glass would not participate in the current conduction process. The microstructures revealed by our images of these n-type Si cell contacts are consistent with our previously proposed conduction model of nano-Ag colloid assisted tunneling.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microstructural characterization and current conduction mechanisms of front-side contact of n-type crystalline Si solar cells with Ag/Al pastes

Liang

Cheng

et al. 2015

Journal of Applied Physics

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Recently, high efficiency n-type crystalline Si cells made with the screen printed Ag/Al metallization have received considerable attention. We report here our microstructural investigations of the critical interfacial region between the front-side contact and the Si wafer of n-type cells fired under progressively higher temperatures. Our study revealed that the key characteristic microstructures of the interfacial region changed from one with a large fraction of residual SiNx, to one consisting of a thin glass layer with nano-Ag colloids, and finally to one decorated with Ag and Ag/Al crystallites attached to the emitter surface for cells with under-, optimally-, and over-fired conditions, respectively. We did not find any Al-Si eutectic layer on the emitter surface that would support a silicon dissolution and re-growth mechanism, which is operative in the back surface field formation process for the Al back contact of p-type industrial solar cells. The presence of the SiNx antireflection coating has likely altered the chemistry between Si and Al significantly. The observed microstructures lead us to conclude that the main current conduction mechanism in optimally-fired n-type cells is tunneling through those areas of thin interfacial glass containing nano-Ag colloids. This mechanism is similar to the current conduction model we have proposed previously for optimally-fired p-type crystalline Si solar cells. We believe that the intrusion of Ag/Al (and/or Ag) crystallites into the p+-Si emitter in over-fired cells is one of the major sources of metallization-induced recombination losses, which degrades cell performance.

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The Nature of Screen Printed Front Side Silver Contacts - Results of the Project MikroSol

Cited by 32 publications

References 17 publications

Electrical properties of the rear contact structure of MWT silicon solar cells

Electrical properties of the rear contact structure of MWT silicon solar cells

Impact of Extended Contact Cofiring on Multicrystalline Silicon Solar Cell Parameters

Microstructural characterization and current conduction mechanisms of front-side contact of n-type crystalline Si solar cells with Ag/Al pastes

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