Impact of effective volume ratio of a dispersant to silver nano-particles on silicon solar cell efficiency in direct ink-jet metallization

Abstract

In this study, the direct ink-jet metallization of finger electrodes on a multi-crystalline silicon solar cell is attempted and the impact of the silver particle size on solar cell efficiency is investigated using silver nano-inks with two different silver particle sizes. When the silver particle size approaches the nano-metric regime of around 18.1 nm, the solar cell efficiency is as low as 8.6%. On the other hand, the solar cell efficiency increases up to a maximum of 12.1% using silver particles that are around 180 nm in size. It is found that the dependence of the solar cell efficiency on the silver particle size is related to the effective volume ratio of a dispersant to silver. As the effective volume ratio increases, detrimental effects, such as an explosive decomposition of the dispersant and high residual stress due to the high volumetric shrinkage of a direct ink-jet printed finger electrode, result in poor contact formation which eventually leads to poor solar cell efficiency. With these experimental results, potential development directions for an ink-jet printer for the direct metallization of a silicon solar cell are comprehensively discussed.