Laser‐Sintered Silver Metallization for Silicon Heterojunction Photovoltaic Cells

Mousumi, Jannatul Ferdous; Bougdid, Yahya; Kulkarni, Gunjan; Li, Tianyi; Kumar, Ranganathan; Kar, Aravinda; Davis, Kristopher Olan

doi:10.1002/solr.202400527

Laser‐Sintered Silver Metallization for Silicon Heterojunction Photovoltaic Cells

Journal Article · Thu Oct 17 00:00:00 EDT 2024 · Solar RRL

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/solr.202400527· OSTI ID:2472665

Mousumi, Jannatul Ferdous ^[1]; Bougdid, Yahya ^[2]; Kulkarni, Gunjan ^[3]; Li, Tianyi ^[4]; Kumar, Ranganathan ^[4]; Kar, Aravinda ^[2]; ^[1]

Department of Materials Science and Engineering Resilient, Intelligent and Sustainable Energy Systems (RISES) Center CREOL, the College of Optics and Photonics Florida Solar Energy Center University of Central Florida 4000 Central Florida Blvd. Orlando FL 32816 USA
CREOL, the College of Optics and Photonics University of Central Florida 4000 Central Florida Blvd. Orlando FL 32816 USA
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering CREOL, the College of Optics and Photonics University of Central Florida 4000 Central Florida Blvd. Orlando FL 32816 USA
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering University of Central Florida 4000 Central Florida Blvd. Orlando FL 32816 USA

Herein, a novel metallization technique is reported for crystalline silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells in which silver (Ag) fingers are printed on the SHJ substrates by dispensing Ag nanoparticle‐based inks through a needle and then sintered with a continuous‐wave carbon dioxide (CO ₂ ) laser. The impact of the Ag ink viscosity on the line quality and the line resistance is investigated on three Ag inks with different viscosities. Increasing ink viscosity yields higher Ag contact heights, larger aspect ratios, and lower line resistance values. The Ag line height increases from less than a micrometer to ≈18.62 ± 3.48 μm with the increasing viscosity. Photoluminescence imaging shows that the low‐resistance Ag metal contacts obtained do not result in any passivation damage of the SHJ substrate. This is because the wavelength of light emitted from the CO ₂ laser (i.e., 10.6 μm) leads to optical absorption in the Ag, but this light is effectively transparent to the transparent conductive oxide film, amorphous silicon films, and crystalline silicon substrate. Bulk resistivity values as low as 6.5 μΩ cm are obtained for the laser‐sintered Ag contact and printed using the Ag ink with the highest viscosity in this work.

View Accepted Manuscript (Publisher)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: NONE; EE0008980

OSTI ID:: 2472665

Journal Information:: Solar RRL, Journal Name: Solar RRL; ISSN 2367-198X

Publisher:: Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: Germany

Language:: English

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