Ink jet printable silver metallization with zinc oxide for front side metallization for micro crystalline silicon solar cells

Ink jet printable water based inks are prepared by a new silver nanoparticle synthesis and the addition of nanoscaled ZnO particles. For the formation of front side contacts the inks are ink jet printed on the front side of micro crystalline silicon solar cells, and contact the cell directly during the firing step by etching through the wafers' anti-reflection coating (ARC). In terms of Ag dissolution and precipitation the mechanism of contact formation can be compared to commercial glass containing thick film pastes. This avoids additional processing steps, like laser ablation, which are usually necessary to open the ARC prior to ink jet printing. As a consequence process costs can be reduced. In order to optimize the ARC etching and contact formation during firing, zinc oxide nanoparticles are investigated as an ink additive. By utilization of in situ contact resistivity measurements the mechanism of contacting was explored. Our results show that silver inks containing ZnO particles realize a specific contact resistance below 10 mΩ⋅cm². By using a multi-pass ink jet printing and plating process a front side metallization of commercial 6  ×  6 inch² standard micro crystalline silicone solar cells with emitter resistance of 60 Ω/◽ was achieved and showed an efficiency of 15.7%. (paper)