Contact formation of front side metallization in p-type, single crystalline Si solar cells Microstructure, temperature dependent series resistance and percolation model.pdfVIP

Solar Energy Materials Solar Cells 145 (2016) 358–367 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Solar Energy Materials Solar Cells journal homepage: /locate/solmat Contact formation of front side metallization in p-type, single crystalline Si solar cells: Microstructure, temperature dependent series resistance and percolation model Praveen Kumar n, Michael Pfeffer, Benjamin Willsch, Oliver Eibl Institute of Applied Physics, Eberhard Karls University Tuebingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 10, D-72079 Tuebingen, Germany article info Article history: Received 12 August 2015 Received in revised form 14 October 2015 Accepted 27 October 2015 Available online 14 November 2015 Keywords: Contact formation Front side metallization Single crystalline Si solar cells Microstructure Series resistance Percolation model abstract Screen printed front side contacts were investigated in single-crystalline (planar and textured) Si solar cells with n-type emitters, yielding maximum ef?ciencies of 18.0%. The crystallographic orientation of the Si surface and the paste strongly affect the contact formation as well as the contact resistance of the cells. For textured cells a continuous glass layer together with the formation of Ag colloids yielded a small contact resistance. Planar ?111?oriented Si yielded speci?cally lower contact resistance (?5 mΩ cm2) as compared to planar ?100? orientation (?10–40 mΩ cm2) for different pastes. Pyramidal Ag crystals are formed only on ?100? oriented Si, whereas lens shaped Ag crystals are grown on ?111?surfaces. From this it was concluded that the shape of the Ag nanocrystals determines the contact resistance, pyramidal Ag crystals formed on ?100? planar surfaces yielded cells with large contact resistance and are, therefore, not considered to be necessary for a low contact resistance. Temperature dependent series resistance measurements yielded metallic behavior for cells with the lowest contact resistance bound to a certain paste. For other pastes and proc