Optimized Stencil Print for Low Ag Paste Consumption and High Conversion Efficiencies

We evaluate industrial-type PERC solar cells applying a dual printed front grid with stencil printed Ag fingers. We vary the Ag paste consumption for the finger print between 8.4 mg and 120.4 mg per 156 × 156 mm2 wafer (weighted after printing before drying) by using polyurethane squeegees with different shore hardness as well as a metal squeegee and by varying the printing pressure to obtain different finger heights. The busbar consumes additional 19.5 mg Ag paste. We obtain average finger heights from 5.9 μm up to 24.3 μm for 55 μm to 65 μm wide fingers. The resulting PERC solar cells show an average efficiency of 20.2% for finger paste consumptions above 60 mg. In contrast, a strong reduction of the conversion efficiency with less than 60 mg finger paste consumption is observed since the increased series resistance reduces the FF. By analytical modelling, we compare the calculated series resistance to the experimental data and observe a good accordance for more than 40 mg finger paste consumption whereas the experimental series resistance slightly exceed the modelled values below 40 mg. In addition, we use numerical simulations to investigate the series resistance dependence on the finger height which shows higher experimental values for finger height below 10 μm. The deviation of the measured series resistance and the two modelled cases is mostly due to inhomogeneous distribution of finger height profiles and finger interruptions on the solar cells with front finger paste consumption of less than 40 mg. For finger paste consumption below 60 mg, we find that also the specific contact resistance increases. A physical model of the root cause for this dependence still has to be found.