Comparative study of metal–semiconductor contact degradation by current pulses on silicon solar cells with two contact types

This work accomplishes a comparative study of metal–semiconductor contact degradation on two different types of silicon solar cells contacts. One of them was a thermally vacuum-evaporated Ti/Pd/Ag contact, and the other one was a screen-printed contact. An experimental and theoretical methodology was applied in order to study the degradation due to periodic hot/cool switching and knowledge about all fundamental parameters from I–V characteristics of both types of solar cells was obtained. The periodic hot/cool process was carried out by current pulses and the double exponential model of I–V characteristic was used to acquire all fundamental parameters of the solar cells. We found that all fundamental parameters of both types of cells were degraded with the application of current pulses in the time studied, but in any case, the screen-printed contacts were degraded more smoothly than the thermally vacuum-evaporated front contacts of Ti/Pd/Ag.