Capitalizing on the Glass-Etching Effect of Silver Plating Chemistry to Contact Si Solar Cells With Homogeneous 100–110 $\Omega/\hbox{sq}$ Emitters

Abstract

Homogeneous high-sheet-resistance emitter (HHSE), excellent surface passivation, and high-quality contacts, along with narrow gridlines, are needed for high-efficiency solar cells. However, HHSE in conjunction with screen-printed (SP) contacts often gives low fill factor (FF) because of high contact resistance. We capitalized on the glass-etching property of light-induced plating of silver to decrease the contact resistance and formed high-quality contacts to 100-110 Ω/sq HHSE. This led to the achievement of 78.5% FF, 38.3 mA/cm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> short-circuit current density ( <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">J</i> <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">SC</sub> ) due to narrow line widths (65 μm), and efficiency of 18.7%.